


The Shipwrecked Sailor

by tnnyoh



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Oxventure
Genre: Based On a D&D Game, Gen, outsidexbox - Freeform, oxventure - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnnyoh/pseuds/tnnyoh
Summary: After the events of The Miserable Manor, Royal State of Mind and The Wayfarer, Corazon and his crew are headed to an island, but it isn't all fun, games and relaxation.





	1. Do Not Cry For Sea

The sun was starting to rise as The Joyful Damnation slowed on the water, it’s captain put the anchor down in the harbor of Abelforth and saw four people standing on the docks, arms crossed and expressions angry.

“Oy, Percy!” Egbert shouted from below

Corazón pulled back on the sails and sat on the edge of the ship, his legs dangling over “Hey guys” he said with a grin

“Don’t just hey guys us!” Merilwen said “We’re very mad at you”

“Yeah!” Dob shouted “Don’t try to charm you way out of this one, buddy”

He judged the distance from his ship and the dock for a moment and then pushed off the side of the ship, landing perfectly, almost cat-like on the docks in front of his friends. “Am I not going to get a hug or something?”

Dob approached him with his arms open and Corazón shook his head “Not this guy”

“We’re glad you’re okay Corazón” Merilwen said “But you just bailed on us for three days without saying anything”

“I needed some space, alright? I’ve been through a lot”

“You still should have said something”

He shrugged “What if I buy you all drinks later?” He pulled out a coin purse from his pocket “I nicked this off my father a couple days ago”

“I think you’re going to have to do better than that to get us to forgive you” Dob said

“Hey Egbert” Corazón said “Can I have one of your pamphlets?”

Egbert’s face lightened up and he beamed happily, reaching into his pack and grabbing a handful of pamphlets. Corazón took them and shoved them in his back pocket.

“You’re alright, buddy” Egbert said happily, pulling the small pirate into an uncomfortably rib-crushing hug.

“You’re squeezing my kidneys, Egbert” He said, trying not to choke

“Can we not mention kidneys…” Egbert said darkly, loosening his grip.

Corazón tried not to smile at the dragon-man and turned towards the others “So what are we waiting for? We should get the hell out of here”

“Wait!” a voice shouted out from behind them, they turned to see a redhead with a very long dress that she was somehow not tripping over while running, It was that Ingrid girl he had met a while back, she skidded to a stop and held out a necklace, trying to catch her breath “Corazón” She said “Katie’s left town but she wanted me to give this to you, she said she stole it from your ship”

“Huh” He took it out of Ingrid’s hands and inspected it “I don’t really remember, but I guess I have a lot of junk”

“You should try it on!” Merilwen said “It looks nice”

“Yeah” Ingrid said breathlessly “It’d really compliment your eyes”

Everyone looked at her, causing her face to turn red in embarrassment “I think I need to go back to my shop now” She didn’t turn and run, she simply slowly backed away from the group, never breaking line of sight. Merilwen giggled and gave Corazón a nudge “Look at you, your lies about making people swoon just became true”

He rolled his eyes “Shut up” he turned his attention to the necklace, while placing it around hi neck he felt a sort of odd tingling sensation that was prickling at his skin, it felt familiar but what was it?

He shook the feeling off and looked up at his friends “Well, If everyone has their stuff, get the hell on my boat”

“Ship”

“I knew that” Corazón said as they all boarded the ship, he adjusted the sails once more, brought up the anchor and walked over to the steering wheel…

Only then did he remember what this feeling was, it was the same feeling he had when Dob glued broken pieces of cursed wood to him, arcane energy… dark arcane energy.

“Guys…” He said

The ship started to move on it’s own, knocking them to and from, he managed to steady himself and grab the wheel, only to find that it didn’t respond to any of his movements.

“Hey Ron!” a voice from the docks said, they all ran to the edge of the ship as it started to pull out of the harbor, standing there on the edge of the docks was Katie Delacor, arms crossed and a smug smile on her face. “Nice necklace!”

“Katie, what did you do?!”

“Well, lets just say that I hope you like cursed islands, because that’s where you’re going”

“Who likes cursed islands!? You stupid jerk, I didn’t even do anything to you!” Corazón shouted

“Oh, you sure did. Corazón de Ballena, you’re the reason nobody takes me seriously as a thief anymore, I’m a joke, I was laughed out of Tanner’s Folly. TANNER’S FOLLY!” She said angrily 

“How is that my fault?!”

“You and your stupid massive pearl!, and by the way, that necklace isn’t coming off either! Neat little part of the curse”

Corazón grabbed at the necklace and found that it in fact would not come off of him, it was like he was trying to lift something very heavy, or something wedged between two rocks, it just wouldn’t budge.

“And one last thing, I told all your friends you were crying like a baby in the alley at that Edwards party”

Corazón gave her a rude hand gesture as the ship started to turn, Katie did nothing but smile and wave. 

“Have fun!” She said, her voice filled with glee as they lost sight of the docks.

He turned to the rest of the crew “Great, what are we going to do?”

“I mean, we could start with cleaning the ship up, what’s with all the alcohol bottles?” Merilwen asked

Corazón looked around, all the bottles of alcohol he had during his trip to the off the coast island were littered around, some of them still had half or more in them. He assumed he had been too drunk to drink the full bottle before opening a new one.

“Uh” he said “I didn’t have any water”

Merilwen raised an eyebrow and looked at Dob, who looked at Prudence, who looked at Egbert, but Egbert was too busy staring at his hand, he then looked up.

“What? What’s going on? Are we judging Corazón?”

“No, we’re not _judging_ Corazón. We’re concerned about him”

“I think we should be more concerned with the fact that we’re headed for a cursed island with no way to stop the ship” Corazón said, crossing his arms

“That _is_ quite alarming” Merilwen said “But… you left for three days.. We thought you weren’t coming back”

He sighed “I’m sorry, alright? I.. needed time alone”

“We know you’re like a cool pirate or whatever” Dob said, his arms crossed “But you really scared us…”

“We thought you just left us in Abelforth” Egbert added

“Guys, can we focus on the problem at hand.. being stuck on a curse cruise to a death island?”

Prudence stepped up to Corazón, he flinched for a second, the only reason Prudence would ever get close to anyone would be to stab them with her stiletto knife, but she simply extended her hand out “Can I see your necklace?”

“Sure, but don’t eldritch blast it or anything” He said as she grabbed the necklace in her hand, tugging a little too hard on the chain

“Ow”

“Hm, that has me thinking, what if I break it?” Prudence said “I mean, it’s worth a try, right?”

She tugged harder on the body of the necklace until the chain snapped in half, breaking off of Corazón’s neck and landing onto the deck. They watched in absolute astonishment as the broken pieces of the chain flew back together with the charm attached to it, what looked like a golden leaf, and snapped back around Corazón’s neck.

“Damn it” Prudence said “should have known that was going to happen” She studied it further “It looks like old magic, I have no idea where Katie could have gotten this from”

“She’s a thief” Corazón said simply “She probably nicked it off someone else, what we really need to figure out is what this curse is, and how to break it”

“She knew about the island we’re going to” Prudence said “Maybe that’s where the necklace is _from_?” She took a step back from Corazón and shrugged “I’ll go read over some books in my cabin, but I’m not quite sure about this”

Prudence disappeared into her cabin below the deck of the ship and Corazón sat down against a barrel, watching the others chatting among themselves. Egbert, Merilwen and Dob were all having a conversation about some of the things they had done in Abelforth, after a while they had dispersed and Dob sat next to Corazón on the deck.

“How ya doing buddy?”

Corazón closed his eyes, it wasn’t that he didn’t miss his crew when he was held prisoner, it’s just that he wanted to be alone and Dob was obnoxiously loud. “I’m fine, Dob”

“Really? Because you’re using that voice you use when you’re annoyed”

“Is everyone really mad at me?”

“I mean, we’re not happy that you bailed on us, you should have said something, Cor, I mean we’re your friends, we risked so much to rescue you and I guess it sort of feels like-”

‘Like I don’t care… right, because all I am is just a mean, heartless jerk. I get it“

“I didn’t say that”

“You didn’t have to, Dob. and if you don’t mind, I’ll be in my cabin” He stormed to his cabin underneath the deck, slamming the door on his way in. He shouted as he slammed the door and kicked a trunk that held many a treasure he had plundered in his adventures, both with the guild and by himself.

He let out another string of swear words when his foot connected with the trunk with a little bit too much force, causing pain to shoot up into his leg. He sat on the bed and sighed, lifting his foot onto his other leg, removing the boot and massaging his foot carefully.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache was starting to form right behind his eyes, though it likely wasn’t helped by the fact that he hadn’t eaten in nearly a week or more, how was he even still alive?

He groaned and laid flat on the bed, there was no way for them to tell where they were going or if where they were going had any food available. Cursed island or no, he was starving.

An idea popped into his head and he grabbed his rucksack from underneath the bed, this was the pack he had taken with him when they visited the Deep Woods and helped blind a forest of animals. He dug through it a bit before he found a little parchment ball, it was rolled up to protect what was inside of it, berries, red and delicious berries.

He had taken about two handfuls from the forest and shoved them in his pack for later, they were still quite ripe, though some were a little crushed or otherwise mushy, he was going to eat them anyway. He never felt so hungry in his entire life.

As he casually ate the berries, the room started spinning, colors seemed a bit brighter and his eyes kept blurring everything, after a while he staggered out of the cabin.

“Guys!” he yelled cheerfully “I have a _great_ idea!”

“What is it, Corazón?”

“Everyone should have some of these _berries_!”

Dob and Merilwen gasped “Not the berries!” they said in unison

He squinted at the two for a minute “Bob, Cheryl” he nodded in agreement with the names he chose for them.

“Corazón” Egbert put his large dragon hand on Corazón’s shoulder, stopping him from falling over “Are you quite alright?”

“Sure buddy, but I have a question… can you _see_ that?” he said, pointing over Egbert’s shoulder to where a giant and very angry looking octopus was sat in the water, with what looked like a man standing on it’s back operating a cannon.

“Oh f-” Egbert said “Everybody hit the deck!” He shouted before the ship was rocked by the cannon fire, Egbert pushed Corazón down onto the deck of the ship and shook him

“Corazón, snap out of it. We’re being attacked!”

“That’s not very nice of that octopus… Maybe Merilwen can talk him down”

“Corazón, that’s not an octopus, that’s a ship, an enemy ship. Where the hell are we!?”

Corazón reached into his jacket pocket and grabbed a map, opening it up and staring at it for several minutes before realizing what he opened it for. 

“We’re in uncharted waters” He said “But Runner’s Den is nearby”

“Runners Den?”

“Yes?”

“No, I’m asking what it is” Egbert said, getting impatient

“It’s a pirate haven, pirates famously hate other pirates. I’m going to try to talk to them”

“Corazón, you’re high!”

“I’m also _really_ charming, I can probably talk ‘em down.” He pushed himself up into a standing position and approached the side of the ship, signaling to the other ship to come closer, to everyone’s astonishment, they had stopped firing long enough to come to a slow and steady pace beside the Joyful Damnation.

A man with long hair tied back into a ponytail came to the side of his own ship, which was flying a black flag. “Who the ‘ell are you?” he asked

“I am captain Corazón de Ballena of The Joyful Damnation” he said confidently

“Oh yeah, I heard of you, you the one that fought that owlbear all by his lonesome?”

“That is me!” Corazón said happily, it felt like his body wanted to fall over but he held on tightly to the ship “Why are you firing on us?”

“Thought you might be mates what wanna wreck us up. Sorry about that”

“It’s all good mate, hey uh.. we’re sort of cursed and headed for an island that I don’t know, any clue as to where that is?”

“There’s only one island this far past Runner’s Den, mate” the other man said “The Golden Sanctuary”

“What is it?”

“Dunno, never been myself. It’s cursed, ya see. You get on that island, and you can’t leave”

“Hey” Egbert said, coming to lean against the side of the ship “If you’ve never been there, how do you know about it?”

He scratched his head for a minute “Mate that was there told me all about it”

“How did he tell you anything if he was trapped on a cursed island?” Merilwen added, joining the other two.

“Told me when he got off the island, said he tied some rope to some sea turtles or something”

“Where did he get the rope?” Corazón asked

“It’s not important, what is important is you shouldn’t be going that way if you wanna live a happy healthy life”

Corazón groaned “We kind of don’t have a choice in the matter” he indicated his necklace “Cursed jewelry”

“Well why the hell would you go an buy something like that?” he asked

Merilwen rolled her eyes and cleared her throat “Did your friend tell you anything about this island?”

“He told me it was really…really scary” He said

Merilwen and Egbert looked at Corazón who looked to his side and then back to them “What?”

“Corazón, you’re not going to have a fun time here if it’s scary” Egbert said “How scary is it?” He asked the other pirate

“Very scary, like dark… Like real haunted stuff going on. Ghosts and the like”

Corazón scoffed at this “Ghosts aren’t real! That’s absolutely rubbish” 

Merilwen raised an eyebrow at the pirate “Corazón, if you believe that, why do you always check for ‘spookingtons’ right before we all go to sleep?”

This elicited a nervous laugh from the pirate who then pointed at something over the horizon “Look over there!” he shouted “A distraction!”

He jumped down onto the deck while Merilwen and Egbert stared at him. He looked up at them “Shhh”

“Cora..” Merilwen started, approaching her friend, he interrupted her with a shush once more and she shook her head, turning to the other ship “Well, it looks like the ship wants to turn this way” She indicated left with her thumb “I guess, we won’t see you again, as per that curse that won’t let us leave the island, as you said”

“As is true” he said, nodding his head “’Twas nice meeting you, I hope you enjoy your stay”

“I’m sure we’ll have no choice” She smiled and shrugged as the Joyful Damnation started to switch directions, as if a captain had made the orders himself and the winds had changed, but nothing changed, and the day was quite still.

But the ship still turned.

They had no way of knowing how far away the island was exactly, the vague words of the other pirate weren’t helpful, so they sailed across the great expanse of water, passing the time with various entertainments, Prudence was reading her tomes again, Egbert was staring at his pamphlets, Dob was plucking away on his lute and Corazón staring at his hand.

Merilwen approached him, tapping him lightly on the shoulder “Why are you doing that?”

“Just remembering”

“Remembering what?”

“When I had all that magic, like I know it’s gone now but I’ve been thinking about this for a while”

“About your memories coming back?”

Corazón nodded “I mean I don’t know how magic works, obviously but, is it possible there was residual magic protecting me from the warlock’s memory altering spell?”

Merilwen gave him a look “You’re perfectly fine at magic Corazón, don’t be so hard on yourself”

“Yeah” Prudence said, looking up from her book “I mean even without sandwiches you’re okay at it”

Corazón suspected this was Prudence’s way of giving him a compliment, and since that was a rare thing for tieflings, he’d take it. 

“This is going to sound like an odd question” He began “And I don’t want anyone to make fun of me for it”

“Can’t promise that” Egbert said with a distracted smile

“Do you guys even think of me as a pirate… or am I just a loser with a really stylish outfit?”

“Corazón, you’ve sailed the seas, you’ve hunted for treasure, you’ve gone on so many adventures. Of course you’re a real pirate”

“Then why don’t I feel like one?” He asked, looking down

As he said this, everyone exchanged an awkward glance, looked back at him and then decided to pay attention to something else.

Corazón, suddenly realizing what he said, stood up and loudly declared “Come on guys, we’re going to rock this situation here!” He took a deep breath “Do you smell that air? That’s the air of a new adventure!”

“Corazón, it’s hard to be excited about being on a cruise to a Curse Island”

“Well, get excited! We spent way too long on land, I’m sick of land, I _hate_ land! Let’s be the children of the sea we all know we are!”

“I’m a woof elf” Merilwen said with a frown

“Really, Merilwen?” Corazón asked, the sarcasm apparent in his voice “You’ve _never_ mentioned that before.”

She crossed her arms “Well if we’re going to have to spend so much time together, the least you could do is not be a jerk”

He groaned “Ugh, fine, I’ll be nice. Does anyone want food?”

“You have FOOD?!” Egbert shouted “I’ve been hungry for the last six days”

Prudence gave Egbert a look and slightly backed away from him “Egbert, you ate at the tavern this morning”

“Oh, oh yeah.. Sorry, I keep forgetting stuff”

“What about your kidney?” Dob asked

Egbert’s face went blank and a curl of smoke puffed through his nostrils “I, rather don’t think I can forget that, thank you Dob” he said darkly

“You’re welcome!” Dob said with a huge smile on his face.

Corazón rolled his eyes “I have some food reserves, like dried fruit, some meat”

“If you have food reserves, why did you eat the hallucinogenic berries?” Prudence asked, Corazón shrugged in response.

“Do you have any vegetables?” Dob asked

“Yeah, I keep it in the back because nobody’s going to eat that nonsense”

Dob frowned “I like vegetables”

“Corazón, are you going to be preparing the food?” Merilwen asked

“I mean not if you’re going to say it like that” He gave the elf a frown “Merilwen can make her own food”

The rest of the evening passed without much noise, most of the crew had taken back to their cabins, and Corazón was playing with a tiny model ship while laying back on the cabin cot. The sounds of the waves gently swaying and the light breeze lulled him into a relaxed state, and he soon closed his eyes and fell to sleep

* * *

Corazón sat up in the cabin, the strong smell of the ocean filling his nostrils. He walked out onto the deck, his bare feet felt the damp wood of the ship, possibly a wave crashing over in the night. He saw someone else on the deck, Dob, he was sitting on a barrel and trying to tune his lute. 

“ _Sometimes I throw money in the lake, and my friends think I’m a big mistake  
other times I sing a jaunty tune, but oh-” _He fumbled with the lute as he noticed Corazón

“Hi, I was just tuning my lute but I can go”

Corazón shrugged “I don’t care if you tune your lute here, Dob” 

“Oh okay, so.. yeah but I think I’ll just go do this somewhere else”

He raised an eyebrow at the half-orc “What is wrong with you?”

“I mean if we’re going to be honest, I just don’t really know how to act around you now” he shifted uncomfortably and set his lute on the deck of the ship. “I mean a lot of stuff happened in Abelforth that I don’t really fully understand, a lot of stuff happened to you”

“So?”

“So, I mean… your-”

“I’m not different, Dob, I’m the _same_ guy. We’ve all been through a lot of shit in a short period of time, this is no different”

“It feels a little different to me, I mean I was reunited with my sister and that feels great, but then Bumble and Egbert happened and all the stuff with your dad, I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you”

Corazón groaned “Can we not do this, Dob? I came out here to… to just think on my own and you’re… can we just not?” 

Dob picked up the lute and strummed out a tune that he hummed along to, he wasn’t looking at Corazón as he continued speaking “I’m just saying Corazón, we’re your friends, we want you to know that we’re here for you, and concerned about you, and we love you man.”

Corazón had very little idea how to respond to the half-orcs words, so he simply didn’t. He leaned against the side of the ship and took in the night air as they slowly coasted towards their destination. The sails whipping slightly in the wind. 

“Do you think they’ll have alcohol where we’re going?” he asked

“It’s an island, isn’t it?” Dob said “I’d assume so, I mean, especially if it’s cursed. You’re gonna wanna have a drink or five to forget you live on a cursed island”

He strummed the lute strings again without much thought “Do you think they know it’s cursed?

Corazón shrugged and looked up at the night sky, he remembered when he was a child he learned as much as he could about the stars, he read that sailors always knew the way home because they used stars as a sort of map. 

_“Percy, if you keep staring at the sky, you will break your neck”_ his father would always say, Corazón would of course ignore his father and do it anyway.

_“I’d rather break my neck than live here”_

He can’t remember if anything he ever said changed his father’s stoic and uninterested expression. He looked from the stars to his half-orc friend.

“How is your sister, Dob? You’re writing letters to her, right?”

Dob nodded “She’s fine, she’s still doing some research about rabies. Her life work after all”

“It’s nice of her to dedicate her life to that for you” Corazón said, Dob looked up at him

“You alright, Corazón?”

“I’m fine, Dob”

He turned his attention back to the sea and sky, the inky blackness of the water was a nightmare to some people, but it made him feel like home, a real home. On the Joyful Damnation he was able to be whoever he wanted to be, and he had nobody to tell him he was wrong, and none of his father’s disapproving looks.

* * *

She stared at the him angrily “Are you serious? He’s

_gone?!”_

“He set sail sometime this morning” Cornelius said, with a flinch. He knew she was going to be furious, he just had no idea how furious.

“I assume that isn’t the end of the story?”

Cornelius shook his head “He may be gone, but before he left he went to Lord Milquetoast’s manor”

She raised her eyebrows and sat a bit more straight in her chair “I assume there’s a reason for this visit?”

“I believe he had a letter with him… I can’t be certain though” Cornelius knew the true connection between Corazón and Lord Milquetoast, as his former dragon friend wouldn’t shut up about it, but he wasn’t about to tell that to Amelia.

“So we pay a little visit to the richest man in Abelforth” She said “And the reason you and I even met, I do have a lot to thank him for”

Cornelius almost rolled his eyes but fought against it.

“And hopefully he can help with the whereabouts of Corazón, after all, he’s not just a meal now. I’ve spoken with my master about it and he must have heard of this pirate, he seemed quite excited with the idea of turning him”

“Excuse me?”

“Into a vampire…” She said incredulously

Cornelius rolled his eyes “I _know_ that, I just mean.. Why did you talk to your master?”

“Because I was discussing with him why I was still keeping you around despite the fact that you have scarcely paid me for any of my services”

“I _gave_ you Corazón”

“You GAVE me a name of a man who is now far away from Abelforth!” She shouted

“I…” Cornelius started, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand

“No! You have no argument here, no defense, you promised to repay your debt to me and him and yet you have not done it, Corazón is another mistake in a long list of mistakes you have made” She clucked her tongue “Now, I like you, I do… but _he_ isn’t so forgiving, and he may be the only person I am afraid of”

“So what if I can’t track Corazón down?”

“Then you answer to more than just me”

“I thought you had magical spells to determine where someone was”

She slapped him across the face with an open hand “I only know that if they are IN the same place as I am, you fool!”

She shook her head “The important thing is, we pay a visit to Lord Milquetoast, find out what that letter was about, and then find the goddamn pirate”

* * *

Two days into their journey, tensions began to rise on the ship, even affecting some of the nicer of the group, on the third day, Egbert stormed angrily into the Captain’s Quarters.

“Hey!” Egbert shouted, smacking Corazón with half a fish “Wake up!”

Corazón groaned and sat up in his cot, he blinked a couple times and looked at his friend “What the hell is wrong with you Egbert?!” 

“We’re still on the ocean, like… It’s been three days” He said, waving the half-fish around like a madman while Corazón struggled in his sleepy state to understand what his friend was on about.

“Where are we going!?” Egbert shouted

“A stupid cursed island, Egbert, you know that, I know that, stupid fishermen back in Inkwater know that!” He wrenched the fish out of Egbert’s hand “And don’t smack me with a fish!” he said, tossing it into the corner angrily and standing “Get out, I need to get dressed”

“Fine” Egbert said

The dragon man left and Corazón groaned, the past couple of days on the ship had been extremely tense, everyone was in a low mood because the food was running out and Corazón hadn’t restocked on anything while they were in Abelforth.

Except some of the things he stole from his father’s manor on the way out of town, but even that was dwindling.

“Why can’t we just jump off the ship and swim back to Abelforth?” Dob asked when Corazón, now in his non-sleep clothes, came onto the deck.

“Do you know how to swim?”

“No”

“That’s why, also, no matter. It’s three days away now, we’d die”

“We could hail another ship”

“Most of the ships coming into port are not ships you want to hail, trust me Dob, I’ve lived in Abelforth most of my life, it’s all people coming to port to sell their wares, to make a quick buck off rich people and also, their ships smell bad”

“Are you just… saying that they are bad people because they are poor?”

Corazón shrugged “I mean, in for a penny, in for a pound”

“I don’t think you’re using that expression right, Corazón” Merilwen said quietly

“I don’t care, I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten since Abelforth. I think I had dinner with my father”

“Didn’t you eat with us at the tavern?”

“No, I was thinking about ways I could bail on you guys without you knowing, and then I got drunk on my ship”

“Well that’s nice” Dob said “I’m glad you planned out how to leave us and make us worry sick about you for three days” He crossed his arms

“I was fine, mostly.. I mean aside from the creepy haunted island and the dreadful attacks on my mental health”

Dob and Merilwen, and even Egbert, gave the pirate a concerned look “Are you ever going to talk about what happened on that island?”

“Probably not” he shrugged “No good reason to, I mean… nothing happened. I didn’t cry, shut up”

He cleared his throat “Anyway, how are we all doing morally?”

“Not good” Egbert said “Obviously I just burst into your room screaming at you”

“Yeah, I remember, it was five minutes ago Egbert”

“Well I _was_ about to apologize for it but never mind”

Corazón scoffed “So you get to passive aggressive now?” 

Egbert took a step toward the pirate, his fists balled up in anger “Well you’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place, if we’re passive aggressive towards you, you deserve it!”

“Excuse me?! _I_ got us cursed?”

“Well it’s your fault we were in Abelforth to begin with”

“Egbert, you might want to take a step back before I-”

“Before you _what_ , Corazón? I’m a giant dragon, you’re just a human!”

Rain started to fall from the sky and lightly hit against the deck of the ship, Corazón took a moment, trying to calm himself before he said or did something he’d regret “You seem to forget that I was kidnapped and held hostage, and had my memories taken away from me _by my father_.”

“Your daddy issues aren’t any excuse for this situation”

“Hey, I might have daddy issues but at least I don’t _lie_ about wanting atonement!”

Egbert gasped, he looked as if he had just been slapped across the face “Corazón, don’t… you dare”

“Don’t dare what? Egbert, you have been falling further and further from absolution every single day and you can’t blame us, you can only blame yourself. You _knew_ that we weren’t the kind of people your religion would appreciate, and you kept hanging out with us.”

“Because I grew to like you guys, at least, most of you”

Corazón let out a laugh “Ha! Most of us? Yeah bla bla bla, I get it, nobody likes Corazón, everyone’s mean to Corazón, well you know what?! Corazón’s sick of it” He turned on his heel and attempted to walk back to his cabin when Merilwen tried to come after him 

“Corazón!” She said “Wait, we shouldn’t be fighting”

He whirled around and in one swift motion of his hand, he coated part of the deck in a thin layer of grease, causing Merilwen, Egbert and Dob to slip and fall hard against the ship.

“We shouldn’t? Oh, my bad, see, I already cast the spell!” He crossed into his cabin and slammed the door behind him.


	2. The Joyless Damnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise as the group sails towards what could only be certain doom, elsewhere, someone receives a dark visitor.

Corazón woke up on the sixth day of their trip to the cursed island, he already had a splitting headache and could hear Dob shouting at the top of his lungs on the deck. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, gave one glance over at his clothes trunk and shook his head, deciding to simply head up in his sleep clothes.

His hair, which had been cut during his forced stay in Abelforth, was messy, and to his annoyance didn’t seem to respond to the various tonics he had been drinking. He listlessly ran his hand through his hair and frowned, whoever cut his hair did a terrible job.

 _I suppose it is difficult to perform a haircut on someone who is knocked unconscious_ he thought bitterly.

He braced himself as he stepped out onto the deck, to a scene he didn’t expect. Merilwen and Dob were having a verbal fight, standing at opposite sides with furious body language.

“I can’t _believe_ you would do this, Dob!” Merilwen shouted “I just can’t believe that this is where we’re at”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Oh, like every other time you _don’t_ do something wrong?!” Merilwen let out an angry laugh

Dob adopted a shocked expression and gasped “Excuse me!? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“YOU THREW OUR MONEY IN A LAKE!”

“WHICH TIME!?!” Dob shouted in response

Corazón cleared his throat loudly, causing the two of them to halt and turn his way. 

“Regardless of the fact that we are in a bad situation, there is no excuse for this kind of behavior. I say this as your captain, _and_ as your friend, if you don’t shut up, I will toss you BOTH off the ship!” He shook his head “I am tired, and hungry, and I have a headache.”

“Maybe if you’d stop drinking all the alcohol!” Merilwen said

“Well we don’t have any water, now do we?!”

“That, or you have a serious drinking problem” She responded with an eye roll “And don’t think we’ve forgotten about the bruises we have thanks to _you_ and your goddamn grease!”

“Yeah, what’s with that?” Dob said, turning back to Merilwen “It’s just he’s so adamant that he’s a wizard that he just pulls out that party trick whenever he can”

“I mean is he that insecure?” Merilwen said in agreement. Corazón simply stood there in silence for a moment. “I’ll be in my cabin if anyone needs me”

“Trust me, we don’t”

Corazón huffily stomped back to his cabin and threw himself onto the cot. It wasn’t as if he was a stranger to people saying mean things about him, sometimes those mean things came in the form of a friend, or even a family member. He remembered overhearing Curly Joe one night on the ship.

_“It’s not as if I don’t like him, he’s just.. he’s a lot”_

_“What is with him though? He’s never even been sailing before and he thinks he can be a captain because he’s got a hat?”_

_“We’re all in agreement here, this De Leon fellow, he’s a loser, but he might be a chance for us to get a better hoard of treasure, more money, and a better name for ourselves”_

Not to mention the countless times his father had subtly insulted him and his interests. He groaned and sat up in the cot, it had been a long time since he had been in a decent mood, and that made him even more furious.

“Corazón” Merilwen’s voice said through the door “I’m sorry that I said those horrible things” Corazón had known Merilwen long enough to know her voice when she was preparing to cry, she was extremely upset, he could tell. But he wasn’t feeling very generous at that moment, so he denied her apology.

“I mean, maybe if you had apologized three days ago”

“How can you possibly be judging me for not apologizing when you still haven’t explained why you left us?”

Corazón stared at the door, debating whether or not he should let Merilwen in the cabin or not, he stayed still and looked at the floor instead.

“Merilwen” he began in a quiet voice, “My father tried to kill me, you saw what he did to me.. He stole my life, my memories, my friends, my freedom”

She went quiet on the other side of the door, but he could tell she was still standing there, he continued “With not even enough time passed by to get over the first time he tried to have me killed, that first betrayal” he cleared his throat to cover up the awkward silence following his words.

“My _father_ , Merilwen.”

“Corazón, I’m…”

“I would like to be alone, Please tell the others not to bother me”

“Fine” She said, he heard her footsteps walking away from the door and decided to go back to sleep.

His nap lasted for a few hours when he was shaken awake by Prudence “Corazón!” she said loudly “There’s something freaky going on out here!”

He sat up groggily, looking up at the blurry form of Prudence “What?”

She tugged at his wrist “Come _look”_ she said “I can’t describe it!” Corazón in his sleepy state simply let Prudence lead him out of the cabin and onto the deck, stopping in the middle of the ship.

“Boo!” she said loudly and suddenly, he flinched and looked around “Prudence, what the hell?!”

“Sorry, I messed it up. I don’t know how to do an intervention”

Egbert, Merilwen and Dob popped up seemingly out of nowhere and gathered around Corazón, Egbert put his hand on Corazón’s shoulder.

“Buddy” he started “We’re worried about you, and not just about your general _deal_.” He indicated the state of his hair “But also your attitude”

Corazón scoffed “My attitude is fine!” 

“Says the one who yelled at Merilwen, and cast grease on us, and was a jerk the whole time. Corazón…” Prudence said “You have to talk about what happened on that island, I think it’s making you batty holding it in”

“Why do _you_ even care?”

“Because I have a running theory you got physically hurt and I want to know if you were bleeding profusely” Prudence said matter-of-factly

“Fine” Corazón said reluctantly “If it’ll shut you all up… I’ll tell you what happened.” He pushed away from Egbert and sat down near a barrel, beckoning the others over.

“After everyone had gone to sleep at the inn in Abelforth, I went to my ship, I wrote a letter for my father and then I delivered it”

“You went to see your father?” Merilwen asked

Corazón nodded “I came into the manor, went to his office and asked him to read my letter, he did not. He threw it away.” He said bitterly

Everyone looked down at this and Egbert spoke up “What happened after that?”

“I went back to my ship to get drunk, and then in my drunken state I thought it was a good idea to sail without knowing where I was going. I found myself on a route I couldn’t get away from and washed up on an island beach.”

He leaned against the barrel and sighed “I guess the alcohol had a bad reaction with the fact that I had previously had powerful memory altering spells cast on me, and I forgot the reason I had come there”

“Which was?” Dob asked

“I know you guys didn’t meet him, but most of the time away from you guys I spent with this guy, he made swords… He used to make curtains and he used to deliver them to our manor, he was friends with my father and saw me as a child. I was responsible for his death”

“Corazón” Dob frowned “I’m sorry”

Corazón shrugged “I mean what’s done is done, but I.. I just needed to be away from all of it, I needed to escape from it. Unfortunately, I went to the one island that was haunted as all fuck”

“Haunted by what?”

“No idea, still don’t know. But it was an angry ghost or… whatever, she played with my mind, she made me think I was weak and useless and kept making me think of things I wanted to forget. There was another ghost on that island, one that followed me from Abelforth.”

“Was it the sword guy?” Dob asked

Corazón nodded “Yes, his name was Edwin but he was really _weird_ , so he named his shop ‘Lord of Blades’ and renamed himself Bladeor” 

A gust of wind picked up around them and Corazón sighed deeply “I just have this heavy feeling in my chest all the time, like someone hit me with a cannonball”

“Well, we’re all here for you Corazón” Merilwen said

“Yeah” Egbert added “All of us!”

“Even though I’ve been acting like a jerk?”

His friends nodded and he felt almost an overwhelming amount of appreciation for the four of them, even though they were in this dreadful situation and they had no idea what would happen once they got to this island, he knew that as long as he was with them, everything would be bearable.

He told this to the group later on when the evening was settling in and the sun was shining it’s last golden attempt at being the center of attention.

“And by _bearable_ I mostly mean Merilwen” He joked. Nobody laughed, Merilwen punched him in the shoulder.

But for some reason he felt happier than he had since before they came to Abelforth, and that was good enough.

* * *

She stood at the door and sighed, knocking lightly.

“I don’t understand why you are _knocking”_ Cornelius said. The vampire stared at him before rolling her eyes

“Because I am trying to gain his trust before I torture and maim him for information” She elbowed him “Now shut up, we’ve gone through this plan over and over again the last couple of days”

The door opened and an old looking butler answered, he had a look of disdain in his eyes when he spotted the vampire. She smiled despite this “Hello, is The Lord here?”

“Yes”

“May we come in and see him?”

“He is in his study”

Cornelius and her tried to step into the home but the butler stopped them with a sigh, he shook his head “He is not taking visitors.”

“He took one recently” Cornelius said, this made the man gulp nervously and tear away from the door for a moment, the next, he came back with Lord Milquetoast himself, who was looking weary and irritated.

“Hello Lord” She said “It’s me, Amelia, I mean you know me as Morgana but I’ve…rebranded a couple of times in the last–”

“What do you want?”

“Simply a visit with the Lord, of course. You’re quite a hard man to get a hold of”

“Apparently not” He said, he dismissed Winston and beckoned the two inside his home “Come to my study, I will speak with you there.” He said, leading them in the direction of a neat little room with a chair already by the desk, he took the seat on the other side.

“Why is this chair like this?” Morgana asked

“I have visitors besides you”

She nodded “Kind of what I wanted to speak with you about. My comrade here” She indicated Cornelius, as there was only one chair available, he awkwardly stood by the shadows and looked around the room. The man had an impressive collection of books and strange trinkets that Cornelius couldn’t place.

“I know Cornelius, we have met before.”

“Anyway” Morgana said “I am looking for someone, someone by the name of Corazón de Ba–”

“Ba…” She struggled to remember, Cornelius could help her, could finish the sentence for her, but he hated her so much he wanted to see her embarrass herself. She made a mockery of his existence, it was the least he could ask for.

“Corazón” She settled “Some sailor or pirate or something, and it’s imperative that I find him”

“What makes you think I have any idea where this man is?” Lord Milquetoast said with a sigh, his expression looked as though he wanted to banish the two of them and take a week-long nap.

“Don’t be coy, Lord… We know he paid you a visit here and gave you a letter, I want to know what was in that letter, and I want to know why he would come to _you_ in the middle of the night”

“I do business at all hours”

“With pirates?”

“With anyone who pays enough”

Morgana raised an eyebrow “I think you’re hiding something Mr. Milquetoast”

“ _Lord”_

“Whatever, doesn’t matter. You can’t be lord of anything if I—”

“Make vague and empty threats?” Lord Milquetoast asked, the ghost of a smirk on his face. Cornelius realized it before Morgana did and nearly barked out a laugh.

“Oh I get it” Cornelius said stepping forward.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” Morgana asked

“Corazón’s his _son,_ this is why he’s protecting him.” Cornelius smirked and Morgana leaned over in the chair to smack his arm.

“That’s ridiculous” She said “Why would you even come to that conclusion”

“Because that dragon told me Corazón was a smart-ass back-talker who didn’t know when to shut up” He reached into his pocket and produced a dagger, walking swiftly around the desk and grabbing the Lord by the high neck of his outfit. He pressed the dagger to the man’s neck.

Morgana crossed her arms, rolled her eyes and got up out of the chair, coming around the other side of the desk

“Are you going to be honest with us now?”

“No”

“Where is your son!” She screamed

“Nowhere near here” He said, unfazed.

“God, if Corazón is anything like you, I’m going to have my hands full _when_ I find him.” She grabbed the dagger from Cornelius’ grip and in one quick motion, stabbed through Lord Milquetoasts’ hand, practically pinning it to the table.

She put her hand over his mouth to muffle the screams that sounded, she gave a small smile to the man “Now, you’re going to lie to your house staff, tell them that we are to do business at my… boss’ place. We won’t, of course. We are going to find that damn pirate”

The aristocrat bit down against her finger, making her withdraw her hand with a swear, Cornelius smacked him.

“She’s the one whose supposed to bite people, you dolt”

“You will _not_ find my son” He said “And… and you will not do whatever sick perversions you vampires have.”

“Sick perversions?” She cackled “I just want to drain all the blood out of his body and turn him into a vampire, that’s not weird”

Lord Milquetoast gave the woman a look and a scoff “What is it you plan to do with me, exactly?”

“I’m going to use you as bait” She said “Simple, I’ll try to find your idiot son—”

“Excuse me?”

“Hey, I’ve lived here for a while, I know you and your son have a rocky relationship”

“And yet you were too stupid to know my son ran away to be a pirate _named_ Corazón years back?”

This made Morgana shut up for a moment, her face messed up as her brain tried to work around what Lord Milquetoast was saying. It took a moment for her to process a response, and when she did, it wasn’t great.

“ _You’re_ stupid” She said, clearly pleased with herself. Cornelius nearly face-palmed right there.

Lord Milquetoast raised an eyebrow “Are you quite finished? If you plan to hold me hostage or something, get it over with”

“Hey wait a second!” Cornelius said suddenly “Didn’t I hear some rumors that you tried to have your son killed? Why in the world would you care if someone _else_ wants to kill him?”

“I don’t want to kill him!” Morgana said incredulously “I simply want to turn him into a vampire!”

“That’s not better” Lord Milquetoast and Cornelius said in unison

She scoffed “You didn’t answer the question, why does it matter that I’m after your son?”

Even though Cornelius hated the man, he had to respect his ability to stay cool and collected in a situation where his life was at risk, He didn’t know that he himself would ever be able to do that.

“Because he is my _son_ , and even though we have a complicated relationship, I still care very deeply for the boy”

Morgana scoffed “Care deeply? In my experience, most people tend to _love_ their children” She shook her head “No matter, I’m still using you as bait”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Cornelius asked “I mean, clearly he has a rocky relationship with his father, why would he care if the man was captured?”

“Because shut up!” Morgana said “I’ll _make_ him care. I’ll…take his boat or something”

“Ship” Cornelius and Lord Milquetoast both corrected her, she rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers “Cornelius, tie him up and help me get him out of here without anyone seeing him”

*********************************

“Pass me that please” Corazón asked Merilwen, who sighed and handed him a chunk of what was the last piece of bread they had on the ship.

“We better be almost at this island” She said, it had been over a week and even though the guild was on good terms once more, they were all starting to starve. Especially Egbert.

“Egbert’s been so hungry he can’t stop shaking”

“He also keeps jumping into the freezing cold water even though he knows that he’ll just end up back on the ship”

Several days prior, they found out that leaving the ship in any capacity did not work, Egbert’s stunt ended with him seemingly magically disappearing from the water, and reappearing on the ship, shaking and soaked.

“It’s cool” Egbert said, his teeth chattering “It’s like, I know I won’t drown because I’ll just end up back here. and also… If Cora’s the one with the necklace, why are we all cursed too?”

“Because it’s the ship” Corazón said “Some kind of arcane energy imitating from this necklace”

“Or that haunted island you went to” Dob suggested

“Probably a little bit of both, if I’m honest” He took a hasty bite of food and yawned “I’m exhausted”

“Have you even slept?” Merilwen asked, Corazón responded by shaking his head “Not for like, three days…”

The druid shook her head and got up to walk past him, down into where the cabins were, she came back up a few moments later with a satchel and a mixing bowl.

Corazón groaned “Ugh, no please Merilwen.. Don’t make me _eat_ another one of your horrible pastes”

“It’s good, this one will wake you up a bit.” She said cheerfully, mixing up a bunch of different herbs into a gross looking paste, she put a bit on the wooden spoon and walked on her knees over to Corazón, who was whittling something. He gave her a glance “Merilwen, it’s not wise to approach me with that stuff when I have a dagger”

“Just take it, it’ll make you feel better. It’s restorative!” She held out the spoon like she was offering him a spoonful of some sort of delicious meal, he relented and grabbed the spoon, bracing himself for the sickening flavor of whatever it was she mashed up. He shoved the spoon in his mouth and…

“Wow” he said “This tastes like lemon” he motioned for her to hand him the mixing bowl, she handed it over and smiled

“Finally!” She said “Something I made that you actually like”

He gave her a thumbs up as he spooned the rest of the strange concoction into his mouth, it tasted amazing, and it really did make him feel more alert than he had in the last few weeks.

“This is great Merilwen, thank you” He said, handing back the bowl “And uh, I’m sorry I yelled at you before”

“That’s no matter. it’s been really stressful for all of us”

Corazón shook his head “But I still wanted to make it up to you, so I made you this” he said, reaching into the pack that lay open near his feet, it was something he had whittled earlier on, careful to keep it out of Merilwen’s view for the duration. 

He opened his hand and a tiny wooden cat sat on the center of his palm, Merilwen looked closer and gasped “Oh my goodness” she said, obvious tears starting to form in her eyes “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen”

Dob, who was nearby, made a face “Excuse me?!”

Merilwen sniffled and took the tiny cat, and then threw herself into a hug with an unsuspecting pirate “Thank you” she said, she then pulled away and looked to her half-orc friend “Dob, you’re cute too! But not as cute as tiny kittens made of wood” She started sobbing loudly, which prompted Dob to get up and hug her.

“It’s okay!” he said gently “It’s just a tiny wooden cat”

“But it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and it’s so tiny”

Merilwen’s sobs lasted for a while, which caused Corazón to roll his eyes and nearly regret ever carving the tiny animal at all.

The rest of the morning went by without much incident, when Merilwen finally calmed down she was admiring the wooden kitten, everyone else was talking about decor and what kind of decor they hated in taverns or other establishments.

“There are other establishments?” Egbert asked suddenly

Corazón shot him a look “Yes Egbert, and you’d think you’d be less willing to go in any of them after your kidney” 

“Yeah, well, gotta have fun” he said with a shrug

“Guys!” Merilwen said suddenly, Corazón thought that it was simply a horrified reaction to dropping her tiny wooden kitten off the ship but when he followed where she was pointing, he saw it. An in the distance with looming structures and though he couldn’t really tell from this far away, banners seemingly hung between the buildings.

“Is this the island!?” Dob leaped up and made way to the front of the ship “I can’t see anything!”

“Hold on” Corazón headed over to a ladder in the middle of the ship, quickly making his way up and into the crows nest. He took out his spyglass from his pocket and looked through it. There was a large island coming up, he could even see some people and what looked like market stalls. 

“It’s land, alright!” he shouted down to the others “We should like… prepare or something, we don’t know how friendly these people are going to be”

“Isn’t that a little judgmental?” Merilwen shouted back

“Your face is a little judgmental!” Corazón shouted

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

Corazón grabbed a rope, undoing a fasten that was on it so the other side would release and let him gently but quickly land on the deck of the ship. Dob clapped loudly and enthusiastically, to which Corazón responded by bowing. 

“I know, that _was_ cool, wasn’t it?” he asked, a mix of his egotistical mindset merging with his disbelief that he could actually _do_ something that cool. “Anyway, lands on. We should… get ready”

“Get ready how?”

“I dunno, like.. get your fighting stances going” He waved his hands through the air like a tiger and made a tiny growl “like that”

“Corazón!” Merilwen said “I’m the cat!”

“You’re a _cat_ , not a _tiger_. Learn how to transform into a tiger and then you can growl all ya want.”

Merilwen shot him a dirty look “I’ll get my crossbow ready”

“Woah! Merilwen, I was just kidding” Corazón put his hands up in surrender. Merilwen ignored him and went to fetch her crossbow from her cabin. Corazón looked at Dob and shrugged “I tried”

“She’s a bit sea sick” Dob said “Don’t worry about her”

It didn’t take them very long to reach the harbor of the island, and as they did so they saw just how large and looming some of the structures were. It seemed absolutely massive. Corazón waited for the ship to stop, and then put the anchor down

“Not that we need it, I assume the ship isn’t going anywhere” he stepped onto the docks, there was a man sitting on a shoddy chair that Corazón assumed was made in his own backyard, the man was asleep, but came to as the five of them stepped off the ship.

“Woah, woah. Great Dagon!” He put a hand out to stop Corazón going any further “You have to pay to dock here”

“Why?” Corazón looked around “You’re a cursed island, I assume you don’t get many visitors at all, like, why are you even sitting out here?”

The man sighed “It’s a long story, it’s probably easier if you hand over some of your gold”

“How do you even know I have gold? I could be poor”

The man snorted “No no no, I know _your_ type.” he looked to the tallest building in the distance “What kind of island do you think this is?”

Corazón followed the man’s gaze, then he looked around at some of the other structures. “Oh my god, you guys” he turned to the others “Rich people” 

“Rich people!?” Egbert shouted “That’s… wait, I thought you hated rich people”

“Duh, of course I do! But more rich people means more shit to steal”

The harbor-man snorted “ _You_ steal? I’m sorry, I was under the impression that you were…” He made a face “A lord’s son or something”

“Freaky” Prudence said “It’s like he’s looking into your soul, Corazón”

The man nearly choked “Corazón de Leon? The pirate?” He asked “ _That’s_ who you are?”

Corazón, who was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, took a step backwards and nodded nervously “Y-yeah.. That’s me, who wants to know?” 

“Well if you’re Corazón de Leon, I was right on the money, and speaking of… some of that money would be nice, otherwise I won’t let you pass”

“He’s talking about your dad Corazón” Egbert said “He’s correctly identified you as whatever your name is”

Corazón raised an eyebrow at his dragon-friend “Percival, god Egbert, you literally called me that about an hour ago when you were making fun of me”

“Well, you have to admit, it’s a really stupid name”

“I didn’t choose it!”

“If you are quite finished” the man spoke up again

“I’m finished, but I don’t think Corazón is” Egbert said “And he’s got a huge temper, so you might want to brace yourself”

Corazón turned to his friend and made a motion like he was about to punch him, causing the dragon-man to flinch and take a few steps back, nearly falling off the pier and into the water. Merilwen grabbed Corazón’s arm “Be nice” 

He rolled his eyes and turned to the harbor man, resisting the urge to grab the man by his shoulders, he took a deep breath “How do you even know about me?”

“I know someone back in Abelforth, ol’ Simon Shadwell. We write letters back and forth, he’s the only contact I have with the outside world, and a couple years back he wrote telling me all these things about Percy Milquetoast running away, then the rumors about him going off to be a pirate named Corazón”

He squinted his eyes and looked closer at Corazón “Plus I know what Lord Milquetoast’s son looks like, and you look an awful lot like him”

“I could literally just be a guy who has the same hair and strikingly handsome features”

“Could be” the man admitted “But you also just said your name was Percival five seconds ago, so I’m inclined to think that you’re who I think you are, and also, money please”

“I don’t have any money” Corazón said

“You…” The man groaned “Come on mate, you’re the first persons to come here in ages, I just want the money.”

Corazón took a step forward “Listen, _mate_. There doesn’t need to be a tie up fee for a ship that’s anchored, and also cursed, It’s not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere and that means I have plenty of time to formulate many plans to make your life a living hell, I could do _anything._ I could be _anywhere_. And you’d live your life on this hellish island paranoid and afraid of what could come, what’s he going to do?” he put his hand on the man’s shoulder “I could humiliate you to everyone you know on this island, oh they all think this man is the harbor master, the king of the docks, but he’s really just a _fool,_ and he can’t even get out of bed in the morning without feeling like an absolute failure, nobody even knows your name, and even if they did, they’d be afraid to speak it lest the same fate befalls them, so what do you say we just _let_ the fee go, just this once?”

The man’s eyes widened in fear and he bit his bottom lip “F…Fine, we’ll forget it, just… please go away”

“That’s what I thought” He and the others started walking off the dock and into the harbor proper, Corazón turned around and punched his palm threateningly, the man whimpered.

“Did you have to scare that poor man, Corazón? He was just doing his job” Merilwen asked as they walked through the harbor, Corazón shrugged

“I mean, it was pretty fun, and also to assume I have money just because my father is rich, the nerve of that absolute idiot”

“Corazón you stole _three_ coin purses from him in Abelforth, and probably something else on the way out of the manor”

“Sure, fair enough but… not everyone needs to know about that”


	3. Unexpected Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corazon and the others arrive at the island, which is already brimming with dangers before they even are able to get a drink, and Morgana's plans are executed perfectly.

“What exactly do you plan on doing with him?” Cornelius asked as Morgana crossed her arms, staring at the man in front of her, his arms were tied behind a chair.

She shrugged “I have no idea, I mean… usually these things are easier than this”

“You’ve… kidnapped people before?”

“Is it really called kidnapping if he’s an adult?”

“It doesn’t mean you’re _napping_ kids” Cornelius said “It just means like, you’re taking someone, we’ve taken a person from their home and put him in a new location.”

As was usual in Abelforth, it was raining, the sun was hidden behind the clouds and inside it was incredibly dark, he would think it was night if he didn’t know better. He heard the rain pattering slowly against the windows.

“Napping kids?” Morgana said with a chuckle “Does that mean they are just going to bed?”

Cornelius and Morgana were interrupted by a groan of frustration from their captive “Will you… _please_ for the love of all the deities in this world, _shut up”_

 _“Excuse me?”_ Morgana asked, taking a few steps towards the man and leaning over to grab his face. “You know, it would be so simple to break all the bones in your hand”

“What exactly do you think threatening me is going to do? I _know_ you won’t kill me, otherwise you can’t use me as bait”

“I can’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t severely maim you” she said with a shrug, she then proceeded to undo the ropes that bound his arms behind him, she grabbed his non-injured hand and tilted her head “Would you prefer that I break them all at once or one by one?”

“Does your trick ever actually work?” he asked “I find it hard to believe anyone could _actually_ be intimidated by you”

“You know…” She began “Shut up!”

Cornelius rolled his eyes and grabbed her by the arm, leading her away from the captive “Stop flirting with the hostage and lets figure out what we’re doing”

“I am _not_ flirting with him, he’s old enough to be my father when he died” She shrugged “Now if his son is cute..”

“Will you _stop it?!”_ Cornelius said through gritted teeth, sometimes he wondered why he would ever let Morgana’s intimidation tricks work on him, she was nothing but a childish woman playing vampire, and she had been the many years he knew her, at least she was the less irritating of his former companions.

He put his hand to his head as a sudden and very sharp pain started behind his right eye, _no_ he thought.

_no, not now._

This was how it started, this was how it always started.

* * *

“So where should we go first?” Corazón asked the group excitedly “There are six caves on this island, we could like… check those out”

“How do you know that?”

Corazón indicated a man standing on a street corner looking around, the man was wearing a long coat and a hat “That man over there told me” 

“He looks a bit suspicious” Merilwen said

“Oh come off it, Merilwen, you’re so ready to believe the worst about people in trench coats who ask for ten coins in exchange for infor… god damn it!” Corazón suddenly shouted, the man’s eyes widened and he broke into a run.

Corazón chased after the man who ran down the street, and then turned a corner into an alley, he stopped just short of following the man into the alley and crouched down, sneaking behind a low trash bin. The man gave a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall to take out his pipe. Corazón sprung up, kicked the man in the shin and grabbed his pipe.

“Smoking is bad idiot” He said, and then he studied the pipe. It had a very intricate design and it seemed to be filled in with real gold “I’m also taking this, now, where is my money”

“I already spent it!”

Corazón kicked him in the shin again “Do I look like I’m _not_ a career thief? I’m not an idiot” 

“Fine, fine, it’s in my jacket pocket” He reached to his pocket before Corazón stopped him

“didn’t I just say I wasn’t an idiot?, let me do that. I know you’ll probably try to pull a knife on me” he leaned over and reached into the man’s jacket pocket. He grabbed out the mans pistol and tossed it on the ground “Oh, a pistol. Someone’s fancy”

“Shut _up”_ the man said “I can’t take it anymore, you’re so obnoxious. Just take the jacket.” He rose from the ground, unsteady on his injured shins, took off his jacket and threw it at Corazón before hobbling out of the alley. Corazón came back out with a wide smile as he made his way back to his friends “Guys, I love this island”

“Corazón!” Merilwen said “Did you just rob a man?”

“He literally _gave_ it all to me, he said I was so annoying that he’d just let me have it”

The others exchanged looks, then nodded firmly “I get that” Prudence said “I’d almost give anything if you’d shut up”

“Oh really? I feel the same way about you talking of Cthulhu”

“Anyway”‌ Dob said, putting a hand up to stop Prudence from defending her eldritch patron. “We should totally check out the island, it looks all fancy. Corazón, you were rich, what do rich people do?”

“Uh, they sip bad tasting wine and eat caviar.”‌

“Is that it?”

“I‌ mean I‌ went to a _lot_ of high society parties when I‌ was a kid and honestly, guys… that’s pretty much it”

“Okay, I’ll ask your dad about that next time I‌ see him”‌ Dob said

“You won’t ask my father anything, because I’ll kill you if you ever take us anywhere near Abelforth”‌ ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌he tapped on the dagger holstered to the side of his belt and Dob grimaced.

“Nobody is going to murder anyone”

“Aw”

“Okay, Prudence can murder someone”

“Thanks Egbert”‌ Prudence said happily

“Anyway”‌Corazón said, irritation in his voice “We should check out the local shops and maybe… talk to someone, I guess.. that person!”‌ he pointed at a haggard looking woman who was walking through the cobbled streets, and the five of them approached her.

She sighed wearily “I don’t have any money”

“No no”‌ Corazón said hastily “We’re not beggars or trying to rob you, we’re adventurers!”‌

“There isn’t much adventure here”‌ she said, her voice sounded as if she had been in a fire and it had burned most of her throat “Just rich idiots thinking they can _shit_ on the little people”

“Oh my goodness, not the dwarves!”‌ Egbert said, his expression one of shock

“No.. not the dwarves, the poor people, people like me…”‌ ‌She looked at Corazón properly for the first time since he approached her “You are one of those people who _pretends_ , aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”‌

“You know, you’ve never found a place of your own, you’ve just stolen someone else’s place.. Someone who would have been better at it than you… What’s your name, son?”‌

“Uh.. I… Nothing, nobody.”‌ He hesitated

“Your reluctance to give me a name won’t make me change my opinion of you”

“So?‌ you don’t know me, you can’t guess who I‌ am and what I’m about based on looking at me for five seconds”

“Oh young man, I can tell a great many things just by looking at you”‌ She let out a sigh “I am so sorry”

Corazón was feeling increasingly uncomfortable the more this woman spoke, he wanted to end the conversation with haste, but she wouldn’t let up, the others simply stood behind him in a state of silent awe, wondering what she would say next. 

“Excuse me?”‌

“You must have been so lonely, just a young boy and no friends”

“Hey, lady. I have friends!”‌ he gestured behind him to the rest of the group and she shook her head

“No no, I‌ don’t mean them, now.. I‌ mean before, just a boy alone in a manor, wondering… I‌ suspect waiting”‌ She raised a withered old hand and took his into it, her skin was nearly ice cold, he tried to recoil but her strength was immense “And you can’t speak until you meet again”‌ 

“What?‌”‌ Corazón tried to wrench his hand out of hers but she held on with an insanely strong grip, she used her free hand to gently turn his face to hers, her eyes boring into his own.

“Guys”‌ he said, his voice nearly as hoarse as the woman’s “Please help me!”‌

Prudence tried to grab him, and Egbert tried to tackle the woman, but they were stopped by a strange force, almost as if a bubble existed around the woman and the pirate.

He closed his eyes, her hand against his skin felt like a thousand insects crawling into his eyes and mouth, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he was struggling to breathe without hyperventilating.

“ _You cannot speak”‌_ the woman whispered, somehow without her lips moving at all “ _Until you meet again”_

“Please, stop it”‌ he said “let go of me!”‌ He felt so utterly helpless, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream, she slowly started to take a deep breathe, and when she did, a strange mist appeared between them as if it was pulled directly out of his throat. She breathed it in and straightened up, letting go of his wrist and smiling her unsettling smile, while a large bruise was already forming on his skin where she had touched him.

Prudence and Merilwen caught him as he stumbled backward and they all watched the woman walking away, laughing madly.

“Corazón”‌ Merilwen said, her voice filled with concern “Are you okay?”‌

He stared after the woman with wide eyes, to his horror when he tried to answer his friends, nothing came out.

“Oh shit”‌ Prudence said “That woman was a powerful magic user”‌ She looked behind her “I‌ think she stole his voice”‌

“What, like a mermaid?”‌ Egbert asked, scratching at his head scales

Prudence shook her head “No, I’ve read about this. There’s a old folk tale about a woman who roams towns and takes the villagers voices but she’s really creepy about it, and the things she was saying to Corazón…”

“Did Corazón just get cursed when we’re already cursed?”‌ Dob piped up

Prudence nodded slowly “‌He’s.. he seems in shock, we should do something about that”‌

“Maybe there’s like, an infirmary around here”‌‌‌ Egbert looked around “I mean, we could ask a passerby but the last time we did that, she cursed Corazón”

“How can you even have _two_ curses on you?‌ wouldn’t they cancel each other out?”‌

“Can you guys shut up?”‌ Merilwen said “Our friend is in shock!”‌

To his credit, Corazón did hear everything they were saying, but it sounded strange and it made no sense, like a language he couldn’t quite grasp, he felt so helpless, so far away, and all he could feel was that woman’s cold breathe chilling the air around him. His head was spinning, and he couldn’t stop shaking, and then everything went black.

* * *

“Corazón!”‌

“ _Corazón”_

He heard his voice being called and he felt something squeezing his head

_“YOU CAN’T SPEAK UNTIL YOU MEET AGAIN”_

The woman’s horrible raspy voice filled his ears and her face appeared out of nowhere, her pale skin stretched out over her bony face, she looked exactly like a skeleton, he screamed, but she took it from him and inhaled it into her own mouth, she started cackling and it filled every inch of the pitch blackness he was trapped in.

“Corazón”

He opened his eyes, Egbert and Prudence were blurred in his vision but they were there in front of him, he reached out to touch something, anything… He grabbed for Prudence’s hand, she recoiled “Ew don’t touch me, ‌I‌ don’t know where that’s been”

He tried to respond, he tried to say anything at all, but he couldn’t.

“Pru, he’s just been through something really scary”‌ Merilwen said “He’s just reaching out for his friends”

He looked around, he was in a strange looking house, or what he thought was a house, he looked at his friends.

“Oh, after you passed out we brought you here, to this woman. She’s a magician doctor”‌

“She is _not”‌_ Merilwen said “She’s a doctor that specializes in curses and dark magic, she says you’re fine, by the way, aside from being a bit in shock”

Corazón frowned

“I‌ know, but it’s better than the alternative”

He assumed she meant the alternative was that the old decrepit woman could have unhinged her own jaw and eaten him, he made a face at the image of that, and then suddenly remembered something, he pointed at Dob

_Dob, can you hear me._

“Guys!‌”‌‌ Dob shouted “Corazón just said something into my head”‌

Merilwen and Prudence turned to Dob and Prudence smacked herself on the head “Of course! That magic I‌ know. ”‌

 _What happened to me_ Corazón asked Dob, who shrugged silently.

_You sort of passed out after that weird woman laughed into your face and then breathed some sort of curse into you_

_That… sounds disgusting_ Corazón shuddered, there the feeling was again, the unsettling feeling of insects crawling up his spine and settling into his hair. _Wait, she didn’t put her mouth near my mouth, did she? everything feels blurry._

Dob shook his head _No, she was like a foot away from you, she grabbed your face with her weird hands and kept shouting that you wouldn’t be able to speak until you meet again._

_Was she talking about meeting her again?‌ because I‌ don’t want to do that_

_I assume, I‌ mean what was she talking about anyway?‌ She kept saying she was sorry_

It all came back to Corazón, the woman’s strange ability to look inside his mind, she was grabbing things from his innermost thoughts and using them against him, he knew exactly what she was talking about.

_I think she meant my Father_

_Mr. Milquetoast?‌_

_Lord._ Corazón corrected him, and then smacked himself in the face _I‌ mean, I‌ don’t care!_

Merilwen and Egbert looked around and then back at Corazón “Uh, what’s going on?”‌

Prudence shrugged “I‌ think they are having a conversation, but I‌ can’t hear it”‌

“We are, we’re talking about what Corazón should do”

“What _should_ Corazón do?”‌ Merilwen said “I‌ mean we don’t really know what we’re up against with that woman, but we might need to find her again to break this curse”

“Corazón should, and I am adamant about this, get in a body bag”‌

_Dob, what?‌_

“No seriously! Think of it, nobody will suspect a corpse to be bad and then Corazón can just snap their necks”‌

_Dob! All of these ideas are terrible. Why am I‌ snapping people’s necks again?‌_

“Because”‌ Dob answered aloud “You could theoretically snap everyone’s neck and eventually you might find the woman who cursed you again and then it should be fine”

_Tell them what we talked about Dob, we need to get out of here somehow and go back to ruddy Abelforth_

“Oh”‌ Dob frowned “Corazón doesn’t like my idea about body bags, he wants to get out of here and go back to his home town”‌

“Why?”‌ Prudence asked “With his horrible smelly father?‌”‌

“Hey!”‌ Dob said “I actually thought he smelled quite nice the two times I‌ ever met him, like a summer’s day, like a crisp breeze.. Like cinnamon but not overpowering, sort of like raspberries, grass, elderberries.. the smell of a burning fire”

Corazón, despite the weakness in his arms and legs, lunged out of bed at Dob and started yanking on his hair _STOP BEING WEIRD ABOUT MY DAD!_

 _“_ Oh so now he’s your _dad_ , last time you talked about him he was your _father”‌_ Dob shoved Corazón off him and onto what Corazón assumed was not a particularly clean floor.‌ Dob got up from the floor and brushed himself off “Corazón thinks that woman may have been talking about his father when she said the curse will be broken when ‘you’ meet again”

“Why would you come to that conclusion?”‌ Egbert asked “I‌ thought she was talking about her”‌

Corazón pointed at the dragon man _Because, Egbert, and please for the love of all good do not repeat this, but she was in my head.. she took my thoughts, dug through them like they were papers and she found things._ he paused for a minute _I‌ mean things I‌ haven’t even admitted to myself, about my life, about my past, my father.._

Egbert’s expression changed and he nodded “I think Corazón might be right, we need to find a way out of here”

“What did he say?”‌ Prudence asked

“Just that he thinks she caught on because uh, I‌ mentioned something about his dad”‌

“I‌ don’t remember that”‌ Dob said

“It was under my breath”‌ Egbert shrugged “I‌ guess I‌ was trying to be funny but she must have heard me, anyway… Lets ask around about the cursed island and how to… like, leave it?”‌

“Okay, since Corazón can’t speak. Whose going to lead us?”‌

Corazón rolled his eyes and attempted to stand up but fell back onto the floor with a heavy thud and a silent pained groan. 

“Hey!”‌ a woman said, coming through the doors “What exactly do you think you are doing with my patient?‌ He’s in the care of our medical supervisors, I‌ think you all need to leave”

“But, Corazón’s fine”‌ Dob said “Why would he have to stay here?”

“Because your friend underwent a severe traumatic curse, that woman you met, she’s dangerous, she’s not just crazy, she’s legitimately tried to kill almost everyone here on this island, the last time she cursed me, I‌ almost jumped off a building. Her curses have weird effects, other than the ones that are on the tin”‌ She helped Corazón up and back into the bed “You never know what could happen to you. ”

Dob nodded “I‌ think she’s right you guys, if that’s what we’re up against.. Corazón would be way safer here”‌

Merilwen nodded and came over to the bed to give Corazón a hug “We’re going to find a way to leave this island, and break this curse”‌ She said, reassuringly, and then one by one he watched as each of his friends left him.

“We’ll be back buddy!”‌‌ Dob said with his trademark smile and misplaced optimism

Corazón turned to the woman and raised an eyebrow

“You were unconscious when they brought you in, so I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself. I’m Flora Goddard and I’m the doctor here who specializes in curses and dark magic.”

She gave him a little smile “I’m sorry, I‌ was where you are once. It’s not fun, and I don’t want to scare you but the side effects of her curse, she had cursed me so I‌ couldn’t hear, but there was other stuff that came along with that. I‌ just don’t want her to hurt another person”‌

He laid back in the bed and covered his eyes with his hands, pressing on his eyeballs just enough so that strange shapes were forming in front of his eyes.

“I’ll leave you alone, but I‌ will be coming back to check on you, if not me, then some of my associates. You’re going to be okay, kid”

And with that, he was completely alone, he knew it was still daylight outside but the infirmary was closed off from the outside, and had no windows, so he was surrounded by darkness which tricked his mind into thinking it was night time, and it made it all too easy for him to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not specifically sure Corazon would be able to cast 'message', but it is on the wizard spell list, but it doesn't matter, because I'm forsaking D&D rules a bit for the sake of a good story


	4. Things You Shouldn't Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana and Cornelius continue their hunt, elsewhere, Corazon is finally getting some rest.

* * *

Corazón looked at his hand, his hands and arms had felt really weak after the woman’s curse had taken hold of him. The doctor had come in several times over the last couple of days that he had been here to check on him and make sure there were no unwanted side effects to the curse.

Besides not being able to speak, there wasn’t really anything going on with him, he felt weirdly isolated, he was so used to talking that not being able to felt a bit strange to him. It gave him a lot of time to think and plan out ways to get off the island, and cool additions he could make to his pirate outfit.

Buttons, he needed more buttons.

He hadn’t heard from any of his friends for the last couple of days, they never came back after they said they would figure out a way to get off the island. Corazón assumed they got distracted by a local tavern, and were probably roaring drunk by now.

He sighed, he wished he was drinking with them.

He tapped on his knees, he was sitting up in bed, he felt strange laying down even though he was technically “sick”, it reminded him of times when he was a child and he would pretend to be sick simply so he didn’t have to go to high society parties.

But his father made him go anyway.

He rolled his eyes at the memory, why was he dwelling on his father?

 _Why_ did that woman focus on the memory of his father?

Corazón looked around the room, it was a large room with several beds for other patients, some of whom had come in in the last couple of days, none of them were particularly talkative, but they provided him with a sense that he wasn’t alone, at least. 

He laid back, over the last few days he realized there was nothing to do but sleep here, which if he were to admit it, was a nice relief, he felt like he hadn’t slept properly in months. He woke up more refreshed every day, and the events of Abelforth and the haunted island slipped away with each good night’s rest.

If only he knew how to get off this damn island.

* * *

“Don’t do this Cornelius” Morgana said sourly as he grabbed at his head.

“I.. can’t… do this”

“You can fight it” She said in what he assumed she thought was a sweet way, but sounded more demanding to him.

It had been several days since the first sign of his weakness coming back, when they were torturing the father of the damned pirate, they had been searching for any sign or sliver of information where Corazón had gone off to, but the curse was taking hold of him once more.

He felt confused, scared, paranoid again, he could almost hear the voices when it was silent, telling him about things he shouldn’t know, telling him about _things_ he should have ignored.

Cornelius was sat on the ragged couch as Morgana was pacing in front of Lord Milquetoast, who was starting to lose his composure just a little bit, he was still holding on quite better than Cornelius would have thought.

As if she echoed his thoughts, Morgana spoke for the first time in nearly an hour to the man “I’m surprised you’ve held on this long” she smirked “So I’m going to ask you nicely once more, where is your son?”

“I. don’t. know” he answered, she took a couple more steps towards him and slapped him across the face as hard as she could, even Cornelius flinched at the sound.

“Honestly!” he shouted, his voice hoarse “I have no idea where Percival is. He came to me to deliver me a letter and he left, he did not tell me where he was going”

“What did the letter say?”

“None of your business, is what it said”

“Come on” she said, adopting her sweet tone once more “Do you really _care_ what happens to Percy? I mean he did leave you, after all… He abandoned his own father”

Lord Milquetoast considered this for a moment “Perhaps this is true, but it does not change a thing. I do not know where he is”

“You’re absolutely useless to me then” She said “Cornelius, change of plans, I’m going to kill this guy”

Cornelius got up from the couch, regardless of the pain in his head, he stood in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders “Are you insane? We’re going to use him!”

“Yes, I’m going to use him, as a snack”

“ _No”_ Cornelius said, groaning “We need him for bait, if we don’t have him, we have no leverage.”

“But I’m _hungry”_

 _“_ Such a vile lot, you vampires” Lord Milquetoast said

“Better than a rich man” Morgana said with a smirk “Fine” She said to Cornelius “I won’t touch him, but if we don’t find any information soon…”

“We need to get to Ingrid’s shop, she’s the only one who has what I need, and you won’t do well without me, Morgana”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m sure you don’t want to deal with my insane babbling” Cornelius reasoned

“Fair enough, let’s go to Ingrid’s, we can take the loser with us”

Lord Milquetoast coughed and they both turned around to face him “And isn’t it going to seem a bit odd to the townspeople that I’m being ushered around by two _clearly_ not rich people?”

“Uh” Morgana said, tapping her nose while thinking “I..He’s got a point Cornelius”

“Okay, we’re going to pretend that we are doing business with him, maybe he wants to buy my shop and knock it down for something”

“I like that” Morgana said “Lets go!” She rushed out the door before Cornelius could even add anything else, he looked at the aristocrat “She’s an idiot”

************

“Be quiet” Cornelius said as he lead the man through the cobbled streets of Abelforth, it was quite an overcast day in the village as it was known to be, it cast a gloom over everything and made Cornelius’ head hurt more.

“I’m not making any noise”

“You’re tittering behind me, you have to actually pretend you’re _with_ me”

“I’m sorry, you’re not quite my type, being a man, and literally insane, and my _captor”_

 _“_ Will you keep it down?!” Cornelius said “Don’t go blathering on about how I’m your captor in public” he said as they came up the street in front of Ingrid’s shop, Morgana should have been there by now, but she must have gotten distracted or gone off to find a snack. He sighed and pushed open the door, leading Milquetoast behind him.

“Hello Ingrid”

“Hello! Welcome to the F-” She gulped “Holy shit!” she said aloud, and then covered her mouth “ _Lord_ Milquetoast?!”

“Ah yes” Cornelius said casually “He and I are discussing my shop, he wants to purchase it and do something with it later down the line. He’s offering me quite a handsome bit of money”

“Well it’s very nice to meet you Lord” She said politely “I’ve heard much about you”

“All of it good, I assume”

“I don’t know, Katie had a few swear words about you here and there”

“Katie?” Cornelius asked “You don’t mean Katie Delacour?”

“I do, actually” she said with a smile “How do you know that name?”

“I’ve heard it around, plus, when she first came to Abelforth she broke into my shop and kicked me in my sleep, while loudly announcing who she was and that she was not to be messed with”

“That’s unfortunate, but that’s Katie for you, she’s a bit of a wildcard. I think she knows your dragon friend that you came in here with the other week”

Lord Milquetoast raised an eyebrow at the man “Dragon friend?”

“Yes, he uh, he came in here with a nice man, sort of rude about paying me, but a nice man named Egbert, come to think of it, I saw him quite recently, he was heading off with his friends”

“Heading off?”

She nodded “You sure ask a lot of questions, Lord Milquetoast, if you do forgive for speaking out of turn”

“You are quite forgiven, now, uh who was this Egbert with, exactly?”

Cornelius grabbed at his head once more, feeling the pain throbbing through his temples and the thudding getting harder to ignore, the room felt as if it were spinning, he saw Milquetoast approach the front desk of the shop and he carefully walked to the couch he had passed out on last time he was in here. He held his head and tried to steady his breathing.

“He was with his friends, I don’t know their names except, Corazón, Katie was in here with him the other week as well”

“Corazón?”

She nodded “It’s weird because I recognize him a little bit but I’ve never met him before, I suppose he just has one of those faces”

“Did they say where they were going?”

“Not specifically, but Katie would know, she uh, sort of gave them a cursed necklace that leads to a cursed island”

Cornelius groaned in frustration “Unbelievable, gods damn it all!”

“Are you okay?” Ingrid asked, Cornelius shook his head, he couldn’t believe his bad luck, first he was dealing with the interesting side effects of a curse from long ago, and now the only way to find the target was to head to a cursed island. “How exactly would we go about getting there?”

“Oh, uh, ask Katie, I’m not sure why you would want to go there though”

“Any ideas where we can find this Katie?” Lord Milquetoast asked

“She was hanging around the docks this morning, but she’s also usually in The Angry Barnacle”

“Thank you very much for the information” Lord Milquetoast said, walking to Cornelius and helping him back into a standing position. “Ugh” Cornelius responded

“I feel horrible”

“Well, we’re heading to a bar so you might want to get yourself together”

Cornelius steadied himself and the two men exited the shop, he was surprised at Ingrid’s ability to not comment on the Lord’s awful unkempt look, but he supposed she was quite dumb. The two made their way to the tavern, every so often Cornelius looked around

“Where has she gone off to?” He asked aloud, to nobody in particular

“I don’t know” Milquetoast responded “And I don’t quite care, I’m simply glad to be rid of her constant physical torment”

“Don’t test me” Cornelius said wearily

It didn’t take too long to find The Angry Barnacle, Cornelius and the Lord mostly walked in silence, Cornelius was far too weak to be menacing to his captive and so he took a breath, then spoke

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“None of your business, is my name”

“God, is your son anywhere near as annoying as you are?” Cornelius asked, rubbing at his temples as the two approached the tavern.

Lord Milquetoast ignored him and the two came into the bar together, immediately Cornelius was overwhelmed with the smell of strong ale wafting over the establishment, some people were loudly playing dice games, card games, and some were sitting in the shadows fiddling with knives. Several people were in a physical fight near the end of the tavern.

Cornelius looked at his companion, he looked absolutely disgusted by the display. He instinctively wiped his hands on his admittedly dirtier coat “This is absolutely vile” he shook his head “Percival really wants to be part of crowds like this? I’ll never understand that boy”

“Did you perhaps, try to?” Cornelius asked in spite of himself

“He was such a difficult child” Lord Milquetoast answered “I didn’t know what to do with him”

“Well, not to sound like I’m showing sympathy for him, but Morgana is right, most parents love their children”

Milquetoast waved this away as they stepped further into the horrid establishment, offensive sights, smells and sounds were everywhere, but so was a blonde woman who Cornelius recognized almost right away.

“Katie Delacour?”

She responded by pulling her coat over her head and hopping off the bar stool, Milquetoast stopped her by putting his hand out “I believe we need to have a talk” he said “And I would prefer it outside of this disgusting place”

“Fine” she said “Lead the way” she said, resigned, she followed the two men out of the pub and crossed her arms “What do you want?”

“I simply wish to know where my son is”

“Oh” Katie said with a laugh “Now you care about him? What is it, is there money involved?”

“Well, I’ve been put in a rather awkward position by Cornelius here and an associate of his, they wish to locate my son.”

“I might know where he is, for a little coin”

“You can take whatever you want from the manor, tell me where my son is”

“Cursed island, here” she took an old ring out from her pocket “I have another item from that place, it’ll take you right there, all you need is a ship” She handed over an old ornate looking ring with an emerald center, it glinted in the low afternoon light. “Put it on, it’s the only way it binds to you”

Cornelius watched as the Lord put the ring on, and he could almost hear whispering in the wind as it whipped through the town center.

“That’s all I know, I don’t know what you’re son is going to be doing there, probably something stupid and annoying. But I must warn you, the curse is that you can’t come back once you’ve gone”

“Is that alright with you?” Lord Milquetoast asked Cornelius, who was still staring at the jewel in the center of the ring, he broke his glance away from it and nodded “It’s alright with _me_ , I don’t know if it’s alright with Morgana.”

Lord Milquetoast scoffed “Does she have to come with us?”

“She’s the one who.. yes!” Cornelius shouted, causing several afternoon shoppers to glare at the three of them “Now lets find her and make haste with a ship”

* * *

Over a week had passed by, Corazón had seen his friends several times in the last couple of days, Merilwen and Dob profusely apologizing for not coming in sooner to see him, Egbert talking about an explosion he caused in the town square, Prudence talking about blood.

It was nice to have someone to talk to, or listen to as the case may be.

“Anyway” Dob said one afternoon that week “I’m going to head back to the place we’re staying, we’re going to go out later looking for tomes, Prudence has been big into looking for tomes, we’ve read at least five already but she’s not found what she wants to find, mostly stuff about what that woman cursed you with” he rose from the chair “I’ll see you around buddy”

He spent a lot of the time after Dob left in a fitful state of trying to sleep, and struggling when he realized he wasn’t tired at all. He stared up at the ceiling, he had nothing to do, nobody to talk to. Not even a book to read.

One of the doctor’s aides had come in that evening and provided him with a meal, and given him a book on arcane rituals, the food was bland but the book was incredibly interesting. He sort of wanted to steal it and give it to Prudence later on. After the meal he carefully slipped the book into his clothes that were neatly folded in the drawer when he had come in, as he was wearing proper infirmary clothes.

The nurse came in just as he slammed the drawer on his finger, he let out a yelp and the nurse gave him a look “Are you alright?”

He shook his head fervently and the nurse frowned as she opened the drawer “You know you don’t _have_ to steal the book, right, you could have just asked”

He rolled his eyes and gave her a shrug as if to say _I can’t talk you moron._

“It’s lights out in a bit, so if you’re done trying to steal things. I can put out the lamps”

He nodded, he wasn’t done trying to steal things, and because of her attitude he was going to steal even more things in the dark. But he watched her put the lamps out anyway and leave the room in total darkness. It must have been half past eight by the time he started to fall asleep.

He was awoken by a loud thudding sound from across the room, and then a whispered conversation

“He’s here”

“Where?”

“In one of these beds, just feel around for him”

“Excuse me, how am I supposed to _feel_ around for him? I have no idea what he looks like”

“I do”

“How do you know that?”

“Never mind how I know that”

Corazón pulled the covers over his head as if it would stop the intruders from suspecting he was there, he had to assume they were after him, he was quite famous after all.

They approached his bed and a pair of hands lifted the sheets off his face “This one is awake, do you think this is him?”

The other one, a man, sighed. “That’s him alright”

Corazón tried to roll out of the bed but the woman was too fast, she grabbed him by the wrist and covered his mouth with her free hand so he couldn’t scream. 

“You’re going to come with us nice and quietly” she whispered in his ear “No fussing about”

He took his chance and bit down hard on the edge of the woman’s hand, closest to her pinky, and as she shouted swear words loud enough for the entire town to hear, he ran to the door, trying to open it with all his strength.

“Won’t open” one of the other patients spoke up “It’s locked from the outside for our protection, ironic right now, huh?”

“Cornelius!” the woman shouted “Go get him!”

The man obliged and lunged himself at Corazón, who jumped out of the way, sending Cornelius head first into the door, which opened with a shocked nurse standing there “What the hell is going on?!” she shouted

Corazón shrugged and pushed past her as Cornelius got up and began the chase once more, it was dark in the halls save a few lit sconces and Corazón could barely see anything, but he managed to move gracefully through the hall and to the entrance of the building, he opened the door and ran outside.

There was a moment he thought he would make it, that he could run across the cobbled streets, that he’d be able to find his friends, but that moment quickly faded from his mind as his body hit the ground and he fainted.

* * *

“And you’re going to stay in here until Morgana and I figure out what to do with you” Cornelius barked at him, gripping his arm a little too tightly, Corazón tried to fight against the man but he was weak after he had passed out in front of the infirmary building. Unfortunately for him, Cornelius caught up to him before any of the nurses were able to, he took him back to a strange abandoned castle-like building and carted him down the halls.

It reminded him of the prison he and his friends were thrown into when a Drow woman stole Egbert’s kidney, except this was a little nicer and had better lighting.

And presumably no magic-blocking runes all over the floor and walls, but with his weakness, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform any magic at all. He elbowed Cornelius in the side as the man led him to a room, that was another difference, these weren’t cells, they were rooms, this castle must have been dedicated to something else in the past, perhaps even a manor?

They stopped at the end of the long hall and Cornelius opened a door “You stay there, you’ve been nothing but a pain in my arse for weeks and I’m glad to finally be rid of you” he shoved him into the room and slammed the door behind him.

Corazón pounded on the door, furiously, angrily. But Cornelius had long left, so he looked at the door and inspected the handle, trying to jiggle it and test the locking mechanism, if he could just find something to…

“It’s not going to budge, it’s got a magic block on it or something” a familiar voice said. Corazón knew that he had been cursed, he knew that he was quite weak, so this could have all been a hallucination, he could have been hearing things. But sure enough, when he turned around it was him.

His father.

His father sitting on a half destroyed bed in an old abandoned castle, covered in dirt, blood and sweat.

“Father?” Corazón said, and then he realized that he had been right, the old woman’s curse had been broken, he clasped his hand to his mouth, not recognizing the sound of his own voice.

“Percy?”

Corazón nodded slowly, and walked over to the bed, sitting beside his father.

“What are you doing here?”

“That’s a very long story, more importantly, why exactly does a vampire want to kill you?”

“Damn it Egbert” Corazón said under his breath “Never mind that, why do you look like _hell_?”

“Mind the language, Percival”

“I’m sorry, why do you look like ‘heck’?”

His father let out an exasperated sigh “Not what I meant”

“Oh, I _know_ what you meant. Anyway, never thought I’d say this but boy am I glad to see you”

His father raised an eyebrow “Really?”

“Yeah this mean old woman cursed me and I wasn’t able to speak and I felt really weak and hungry all the time and I was in the infirmary and then that jerk and the other jerk found me and now I’m here”

“What does any of this have to do with you being glad to see me?”

“Oh uh” Corazón said sheepishly running his hand through his unkempt hair “just that the curse was about me not speaking until I met you again. I dunno, she was in my head, she latched onto a thought and I.. don’t know” he looked down at his hands.

“Percival I.. I know it probably does not mean anything coming from me but I am-”

“Please do not” Corazón said, holding up his hand to silence his father “If those words meant anything at all.. things would be a lot different”

“I simply wanted to-”

“What, Father, what is it you wanted to do?”

His father sighed and turned away from him, Corazón saw that his hand was wrapped in a dirty cloth

“What did they do to you?” He asked, grabbing at his hand “This bandage is filthy, you’re going to die of an infection before you die of vampire attacks or something”

His father wrenched his hand away “It’s nothing, it’s a simple cut and that’s all”

Only at this point did Corazón get a good look at his father’s other hand, which was bruised, and swollen in some places. “What the hell is that?” he questioned “Did they break your hand?”

“Leave it alone, Percival”

“Corazón, and no I will not leave it alone, give me your hand. I can probably try to fix it”

“How exactly would you go about doing that?”

“I’ve got cool magic?” Corazón said with a shrug, his father relented and sat forward so Corazón could look at his broken hand. Three of his fingers were broken, and his wrist, as well as a cut that looked like it had been carved into his skin with a rusted dagger.

“You put up a real fight, didn’t you?” Corazón asked his father

“The vampire woman stabbed me in the hand in my office back at the manor, she covered my mouth her hand and I bit her pinky”

Corazón laughed “I did the exact same thing to her in the infirmary. ” 

“Like father, like son. I presume”

Corazón shook his head “The comparisons end there, I’d _never_ have done what you did” 

“You’re asking me to believe that in your chosen profession, a thief, a liar, a scoundrel. That you wouldn’t have your father killed?”

Corazón kept his eyes on his fathers hand, ignoring the question and trying to summon enough energy to cast some kind of simple mending spell. He wasn’t as well versed in this kind of magic as Egbert or even Dob, but he did know a few things he read out of books, it was simply that he had no chance to practice them. 

“Speechless?”

“No, I refuse to answer stupid questions” he said, his voice wavering a little bit. “a question that I wonder how you can even ask”

“I believe it’s a valid question”

“You are my _father”_ Corazón said, a little more force in his tone than he had intended “At least, that’s what you’re supposed to be”

He let go of his fathers hand and stood up, walking away from the man, his bare feet felt sore and cold against the wooden floor. He crossed his arms and faced the wall.

“Percival” his father said, it was such a gentle way to say his name, he wasn’t sure his father had ever said his name that way.

Only it wasn’t his name.

He whipped around angrily “See? You can’t even respect me enough to call me by my name! You’re still looking at me like I’m the boy you wanted to be your heir”

“No, I am looking at you like you are my son”

“Your son, who you tried to have killed _twice_. Who you drugged, who you had dark magic performed on. You erased my memories, you stole my life from me and you are sitting there like you’re the victim?!”

His father said nothing, he simply stared at him.

“That’s what I thought”

There was a pained silence that fell over them in the room, Corazón was inspecting the door and his father was pretending to be asleep on the bed, but Corazón knew he was faking it. Occasionally he looked over at the man with anger and then went back to staring mindlessly at the lock.

After an hour, his father broke the silence.

“Are you alright?”

“Excuse me?” Corazón said, sitting against the door with his head touching just below the handle

“You were hurt, I am asking if you are alright”

“No, no I am not alright. I went back to my hometown, got kidnapped by an angry orc, got stabbed, got kidnapped by my own father and brainwashed into being a prissy little coward, and then got spooked up at a haunted island that some crazy creature wouldn’t let me leave, and now I’m cursed and can’t leave this island, and also, I’m stuck in here with you”

His father got up from the bed and crossed over to the door, sitting beside his son, causing Corazón to move a few inches to the left.

“How long have you been here?” Corazón asked his father after a moment

“A couple of days, four or five”

“Have they even been letting you eat?”

Lord Milquetoast shook his head “Haven’t eaten since the ship ride over here”

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing. How the hell did you even find this place?”

“Language”

“How in the heckens did you manage to get here?” Corazón corrected himself sarcastically

“Your friend Katie Delacour had another cursed item” he pulled something out of his pocket and showed his son a bright emerald ring. Corazón took it and inspected it “This is amazing, I would totally wear this if it wasn’t super cursed”

“Well maybe if Cornelius is able to do what he claims… which is to say, he claims there’s a way to break the island’s curse, if he can, you can have the ring”

“Gee thanks, Dad. Just what I’ve always wanted” Corazón said in a sarcastic and monotone voice.

“Percy”

“Corazón”

“I am trying to have a conversation with my son”

“Why don’t you go home then and talk to my portrait? Then you won’t have to deal with any back talking” He pocketed the ring and glanced at the far side of the room, anything to avoid looking at his father.

“I can never take back what I have done, there is no forgiveness for it. I have turned my back on the title of father, it is one I do not deserve, and I know you do not believe me, but I do care for you, my son”

Corazón shook his head “I can’t believe you’re actually saying these things to me, like, I can’t believe you think that I-”

“I don’t” his father said, putting a hand on his shoulder “I don’t think these words will change it, you don’t have to accept them but I am sorry”

Corazón shoved his father’s hand away from him and gave him a scoff “You tried to _kill_ me, you’d rather have a dead son than ruin your reputation” 

Corazón looked anywhere but at his father, he couldn’t stand the sight of the man, this was the man that had made his childhood what it was, the man who refused to hug his own child, the man who tried to have him killed.

He tried to speak again, but his voice caught in his throat “Why?”

His father cleared his throat “Why what?”

“Why was it more important than your son?”

“Percival..”

Corazón took a deep breath “Dad, you can’t even call me by my name, you can’t even listen to me and what I want and what I feel. It’s a simple goddamn request, _call me_ _Corazón_ ”

“But I don’t know you by that name, my son”

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW ME AS PERCY EITHER!” Corazón shouted, he pushed up from the floor and stomped over to the bed. He laid down, crossing his arms angrily.

He laid there for a while before he heard his father crossing the room and felt a jacket being put over him in place of a blanket.

“Goodnight Percival” his father said

“ _Corazón_ ” he whispered back at his father 


	5. A Story Unfinished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked down at the necklace he was wearing, the one that Katie had stolen from this island and the reason he and his friends were stuck here. It felt like it had been years since all of this had taken place, the very memory of being in the harbour that morning as Ingrid ran to them to deliver Katie’s final gift… it felt foggy, as though it had happened to someone else who couldn’t quite remember the details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, it's been a while since I've written this. But here it is, another (shorter) chapter coming later tonight.

Corazón opened his eyes and saw her staring at him with her piercing eyes, she smiled in a way that made him feel multiple levels of uneasiness. 

“Finally awake, are we?”

“What?” he sat up in bed and looked around the small room, his father wasn’t there anymore “Where is he?” he asked

“Oh, daddy dearest? Don’t worry, I’ve had Cornelius take him to a special place, to be alone.” She flashed him a smile, her expression was smug and he hated it, he hated the glint of happiness in her eyes as if her plan was so clever. 

“What do you want from me?”

“I believe we both know what I want, I was promised payment, and you are that payment”

“Cornelius was not in any position to offer me up on a silver platter”

“Doesn’t matter” Morgana said with a shrug “The moment he said your name, you became the payment, and I want what is due to me”

“Take someone else, this island is full of people that no one will notice go missing because they live on a cursed island!” 

Morgana scoffed “I’m offended deeply that you won’t even give it a chance, who knows, you might like it”

“Excuse me? I might like being a VAMPIRE?!” 

“You never know until you try, have an open mind, Corazón” 

He tried to get up, only to realize she had chained his wrists to the metal underside frame of the bed, he rattled the chains a little bit but nothing gave. 

“I wouldn’t try that, if I were you, it’s just going to piss me off” 

“You chained me?” 

“I couldn’t risk you running away, now could I? I’ve worked very hard to find you, Mr de Leon, and I am not letting you get away” 

“You know, you bad guys are all the same, you do the same stupid stuff and you talk so much that I could probably have picked the lock in the time it takes you to finish your sentence” he causally lifted his hands above his head to show her that he did in fact do exactly that.

Her eyes widened in surprise “How the hell did you do that?, I’ve been watching you this entire time!” 

“Trade secret, sorry lady.” 

“Your not going anywhere, unless you agree to be my thrall” 

“Right, because it sounds like so much fun to be afraid of water and not be able to be in the sun, I’m a pirate!” 

“Come on, think about it, you could be the first vampire pirate… Vampirate” She smiled at the wordplay and looked at him expectantly, he rolled his eyes and tried to push past her but she put a hand to his chest, she was barely touching him but it felt like he was being held back by ten or more of the strongest men and women. 

“Where is my father?” 

“He’s somewhere else, and he’s fine, don’t worry about him” she pushed him back onto the bed and shook her head in a disappointed fashion “This is going to be so much harder than I thought it was going to be, no matter. I like a challenge.” 

Corazón sat on the bed for a while in silence, Morgana began to read from a large tome, the sort of tome that Prudence would love. He was thinking, everyone had a weakness, even vampires, their strength and speed meant that he was unable to fight her the way he normally would with anyone in his way, there had to be something…

He cleared his throat “Morgana” he said gently “I would like to ask a few things”

“Yes?” she set the book down onto the small table and looked at him, her hands folded on her lap.

“What is it like?”

“Being a vampire?”

Corazón nodded “I mean does it… hurt?”

“Only a little bit, when the sharp teeth pierce your skin, other than that it’s not that bad.” 

“And what do vampires do?”

“I mean, we sit around in chairs with poses like this, usually holding a wine glass full of blood to be dramatic. We’re really very gothic” she rose from the chair and took his hand “Why don’t I show you around this place? It’s very nice for such a short notice location” 

He stayed silent and she led him out of the room and into the hall, he saw they were in what appeared to be an abandoned castle of a sort, there were guards posted at different spots throughout the halls and she smiled at this “These men are working for me”

“I suppose not of their own free will?” 

“I wouldn’t see it like that, and neither should you” 

“Fair enough, I want to make a deal with you Morgana, if you let my father go without any more harm, I will consider what you said” 

He could hear water dripping from somewhere else, and the echoing of boots scuffing on the floor in another room, Morgana paused in her walking to consider this, she put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. Corazón rolled his eyes and made a show of adjusting his hair so it fell on one side and more of the area around his neck was exposed. As he hoped, this got her attention. 

“It doesn’t hurt that bad” she said softly “Just… a little pinch and you could be just like me” her eyes kept darting from his face to his neck and she looked a bit unsteady on her feet. 

“Just a little pinch?” he asked, she nodded in silence, taking a deep breath and leaning in a little, Corazón fought not to flinch and relaxed when she backed away, she spoke after a moment “Do you wish to see your father?” 

Corazón nodded silently and waited for her to start walking again before he moved, she led him down the dark and gloomy corridors to a room at the end, he could already hear screaming as they approached the door and he winced, readying himself for what he would see on the other side. 

She pushed open the door and revealed Cornelius, a mad expression on his face, standing over Lord Milquetoast, who was tightly tied to a chair, there were archaic tools strewn about the place and Corazón could see dried blood on the chair and fresh blood running down his father’s face. 

He turned to Morgana and she snapped her fingers at Cornelius “Stop it, we’re letting him go”

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me, we are letting him go. I have what I want”

Corazón’s father weakly opened his eyes and looked at him “My… son” he said weakly. 

“What are you talking about?” Cornelius asked, replacing one of the torture tools on the table, he approached Morgana and she put her hand out “Watch it, I’m talking about how Corazón here has agreed to consider what I offered as long as we let his father go”

“That was not part of this deal!” Cornelius shouted “And are you some kind of idiot!?” 

Morgana faltered for a moment, her expression changed to a frown “How dare you speak to me that way?”

“He’s clearly manipulating you to get what he wants!” 

“I don’t believe you” Morgana said angrily.

Corazón had to think quick, he pushed Morgana into Cornelius and ran to the table of tools, grabbing a sharp knife that was already coated in blood, he waived away the unsettling feeling that it was his fathers blood and held it out in front of him as the two were steadying themselves. 

“Is… is this true, Corazón?” Morgana said with a sad expression “I thought we had something special”

“You’re an idiot if you thought that!” 

Morgana sniffled a little bit and sighed “We made a deal, anything else is… We made a deal!”

“No, no we didn’t. I said let my father go!” 

“You said you’d let me turn you!”

“I didn’t! I said I’d think about it, and I was lying”

“Well, that’s interesting, let me make your choice a little easier, if you don’t do this, I will kill your father” 

“That wasn’t part of the deal… you said you’d let him go” Corazón said, his voice wavering as Morgana attempted to walk closer towards him. 

“You come any closer I’ll… I’ll do something” He said, wildly waving the knife around and miming cutting through the air. 

Morgana rolled her eyes and with the snap of a finger was right behind him, she knocked the dagger out of his hand, brushing his hair away from his neck “It’s simple” she whispered “You either let this happen, or your father will die, isn’t that an easy choice? You hate your father, you’ve never loved him, and he never loved you… Look at that man, weak, pathetic.. He’s not worth it” 

“What you’re saying makes no sense you idiot, you’re trying to make me choose your vampire nonsense, shouldn’t you assume I actually love him?” Corazón tried to pull away from her, but she was a lot stronger than him and seemingly was able to hold him in place without using physical restraint. 

“I’ll kill your father right now if you don’t shut your smart little mouth” she snapped her fingers “Cornelius…”

Cornelius approached Lord Milquetoast, grabbing the dagger from the floor and pressing it against the man’s throat, hard enough to make him bleed. “Percival” his father said weakly, his voice hoarse and his eyes barely able to open “D-d..don’t do this, don’t… go through with this, let me die” 

“No!” Corazón shouted “No, I won’t, that’s insane!” 

His father shook his head “Percy…listen to me, do not… I am not worth it” 

Corazón swallowed hard, his eyes were starting to burn but he was unable to look away from the man, he felt a tear running down his cheek as he whispered “Do it” 

“Did I hear that correctly?” Morgana said

“Do it” Corazón said louder 

His father groaned in pain from the cut on his neck “Corazón…” he whispered “Please… don’t do this” 

Morgana turned Corazón away from his father, she first approached Cornelius and whispered something to him, and then quietly returned, her footsteps were so quiet Corazón didn’t even realize she was there until her sharp teeth pierced into the skin of his neck. 

He winced from the pain, it felt like the tip of a knife cutting deeper and deeper and he wanted to fight her, to push her away, but he was rooted to the spot and he felt his mind start to fog. 

The room was spinning as he lost more and more blood, his mind was blank and he didn’t even notice when the blood started to run down his neck and drip silently onto the floor. He almost felt like this was normal, he couldn’t remember a time her teeth weren’t on his neck, a time when his blood wasn’t dripping onto the floor. 

He was mesmerized by the silence in the room, it felt like peace, relaxation.. after weeks of traveling, of pain, of hurting, there was finally silence, his body relaxed and the tension disappeared, he closed his eyes and simply accepted it. 

And then it was broken by a sudden thud, a man weak but angry hit the vampire over the head with a heavy tome that had been lying on the side table, she didn’t even have time to react before she hit the floor. Corazón fell forward and the weak man caught him in his arms “We need to get out of here” his father’s voice broke through the reverie he was in. 

“Percy, you’re very hurt… We need to get out of here” 

“I don’t.. where is she?”

“She’s down for the moment but she’s not going to stay down” 

“Blood” Corazón whispered, looking at the floor “Blood…”

“You’ve lost a lot of it, we need to get you out of here”

Corazón weakly nodded and tried to stand on his own to follow his father, nearly tripping over Morgana’s currently unconscious form.. His father led him out of the room and into the long hallway 

“How are we supposed to get out of here?” his father said aloud, Corazón couldn’t keep himself steady, he felt like his body was too heavy to stay up and that he would collapse at any moment, he held onto his father’s arm. 

As they made their way down the corridor, his father suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him halfway into one of the open doors “Sh” he said “I thought I heard something” 

Corazón peaked out into the hall and saw two men standing guard with their backs turned, he felt too weak for a physical fight, but maybe if he took a minute to focus he’d be able to use magic. 

“I have an idea” he whispered back to his father.

“Is your idea by any chance, going to get us maimed or killed?”

“Possibly” 

“Percy, whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. Don’t”

“It’s Corazón” he said forcefully “and if you want to get out of here, you have to listen to me, I’m not yours to command anymore!” 

“My concern for your well being is not a command, you have a history of doing irresponsibly stupid things”

“Why do you even care what I do now? I don’t live with you, I haven’t for years” Corazón struggled to keep his voice low and level so as not to alert the guards, he watched their movements for a moment as his father pondered the question. 

“That is a ludicrous question that I refuse to dignify with an answer, I just saved your life in there and this is how you are going to treat me?”

“Rescuing me from a vampire woman with a very small brain doesn’t make up for the years and years of neglect, father” 

His father did not respond, he simply clicked his tongue disapprovingly, causing Corazón to roll his eyes. “Whatever, I’m doing this.” 

He focused for a moment until he could feel some energy surrounding him, it almost felt like the things Merilwen would tell him about meditation, about nature and energy and all the stuff he said was nonsense and would mock her for. 

As he focused, grease materialized onto the floor in the hallway, causing the low lights to cast an eerie glow onto the substance, the two men were unaware for the moment, Corazón turned to his father

“Why can’t you ever be proud of anything I do?” he said in a hushed voice 

“I have been proud of you, Perci-”

“Corazón” he corrected again, he was preparing to raise his voice but the shout from the hallway shifted his attention, he peaked out from the corner and saw one of the men fall over into the grease 

“What the hell?” the felled man said as his friend started to laugh 

“Stop laughing, get me the hell up!” 

“Aha yeah and what, fall into the grease myself? I don’t think so mate…” he turned to walk away from his downed friend but slipped and fell right onto his tailbone as. 

He grunted in pain as his friend started to laugh. 

“Stop laughing at me you twit! Why are we not more concerned about how this grease magically appeared at our feet?”

“Mate, we were hired by a vampire to guard an abandoned mansion that I’m pretty sure they used to use as a hospital that preformed lobotomies on the patients, also… we bloody live on a cursed island!” 

“Fair enough”

Lord Milquetoast tapped his son on the shoulder “What now?” he asked in a whisper

“We cheese it” Corazón said with a shrug “They can’t even get up, they won’t be able to stop us getting out of here.. Come on” he snuck out of the room before his father could object and stood in the hallway.

“Percy!” his father said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of leaving cover, he did, though he was paranoid. 

“Hey!” one of the downed men shouted “What the bloody hell are you two doing?”

“Trying to escape” Corazón said matter-of-factly

“Wait a minute, you’re not supposed to do that” he responded with a confused look on his face. Corazon took his moment to leap into the grease, sliding the length of the hallway until he reached the two men and banged both of them on the back of the head with his elbows. 

Now that they were unconscious, Corazón riffled through the pockets of the guards to try to find the keys to leave, he became so focused on this task that he didn’t hear anything else until a soft voice he recognized as Morgana’s spoke suddenly. 

“Trying to leave?” 

Corazón whipped around to find Morgana surrounded by other guards, and she was holding his father against her with her arm.

“Hey, let him go!” 

“You went back on our deal” she said “I have to have payment” 

“I never made a deal with you, you stupid idiot” Corazón stood up, the floor now clear of grease - he took a step forward towards the vampire, and she grabbed his father closer to her.

“Percy, stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop being defiant, you’re going to get yourself killed”

“I’ve literally dealt with so many things, you wouldn’t even believe… Did you not… read the pam-”

“This is not the time, Percival!” 

“Morgana” Corazón took another step forward “Let him go. He has nothing to do with this, you’re issue is with me…. but technically” 

“What?” 

“It’s Cornelius fault… He’s the one who promised it - I mean honestly all of your problems can be traced back to him”

She considered this for a moment and then smirked “Alright… I’ll let your father go” 

Morgana, true to her word let go of Lord Milquetoast but not before plunging what looked like a jeweled dagger through his back, she clapped her hands together “Now that’s through…” 

Lord Milquetoast fell to his knees, doubling over in pain as Morgana approached Corazón, she grabbed his face with her thin and pale fingers… “You broke a promise to me”

“I never promised you anything, let go of me” 

“I guess stabbing your father wasn’t enough, my goodness child, you really don’t get it..” she snapped her fingers, moving faster than was possible for a human - she threw his father clear across the room, he slammed into the wall with a horrible thud. 

Corazón rushed to his father, kneeling beside him and wincing at the dagger “Father… I can’t take it out, you’ll bleed…” 

“Percival, watch… watch out” he said weakly and Corazón looked behind him just in time to jump out of the way of one of Morgana’s guards, he grabbed a knife from his boot and pointed it around the room. 

“Stay away from me” 

“Aw, so cute… he thinks he’s brave.” 

“Hey, Morgana… if you want my blood” he placed the sharp blade against his wrist “Come and get it” 

The vampire sped at him and Corazón used the chance to jump out of the way of the window… Morgana didn’t have enough time to stop or teleport to safety and she jumped through the high window, her high pitch scream echoed through the room.

Corazón looked at the group of guards “Go, get the hell out of here” he said, still holding the knife in his hand - it was enough to intimidate the guards as they all rushed to leave the area.

He dropped the knife and went back to his father, who was groaning in pain against the wall, Corazón knelt down and took his fathers hand “Don’t you dare die”

“I would not dream to deprive you of the terrible father you had” Lord Milquetoast struggled with his words which were punctuated with coughs and then him wincing from the pain

“You don’t know how to shut up, do you?” Corazón asked 

His father responded with a laugh, a genuine and heartfelt laugh very much unlike the fake laughs of the rich people at get-togethers he had been to as a child. 

As the pair sit with each other, a whooshing noise comes of nowhere and a man dressed in long flowing robes with an odd hat appeared before them. Corazón looked him up and down and squinted for a moment “Binbag?!” 

“Yes it is I… the wizard bin…”

“Shut up and help us Binbag, my father is hurt”

“Oh well…” Binbag started to say but saw the look on the pirates face and swallowed his words. “I mean, of course I, the mighty wizard Binbag will help you and your father”

*************

Corazón looked at his father, he had never seen the man so weak before, he looked up at Egbert who was standing beside the bed. 

“What do I do?” 

Egbert stayed silent “I don’t know Corazón, I…” 

“But you’re a paladin, Egbert… literally your whole deal is just healing people, so why isn’t it working on my father?” 

“I-I don’t know” 

“Well do something! Pray harder to your cow god or whatever, just…” he trailed off, a part of him knew he was being unfair, unreasonable… but what else was he supposed to do in this situation? 

Egbert shifted uncomfortably and Corazón looked over to Merilwen and Dob, standing by the window… but they wouldn’t meet his eyes.

The reality hit him in that moment, no matter the adventures they’ve had, and the monsters they’ve conquered… they wouldn’t win this time, they… he would lose. 

He swallowed hard and stood up, looking around the room once more before speaking “I thought we were in this together guys, we’re a team, right? why won’t you look at me?” 

After several awkward minutes of silence, Merilwen stood forward and put her hand on his shoulder, leading him out of the room and gently shutting the door “Come take a walk with me for a little bit”

“I don’t want to go on a walk, Merilwen”

“It’s important” 

He relented and they walked down the narrow hallway, down the steps of the tavern inn and out the door… the sky was muted pink and blue like someone had dipped a paint brush in both colors and blended them together in a subpar way. It was almost night, the evening air had a chill to it and he coughed when it hit the back of his throat. 

“I don’t understand” he said as they stopped in front of the inn “We’ve done so much, we’ve helped so many people…”

“Why can’t we help him?” 

Corazón shrugged “I don’t even really know why it bothers me so much, it’s not like he was ever really there for me, it’s not like I would really be losing anything at all”

“It is not shameful to admit you care for him, Corazón” Merilwen said with a frown “It’s alright to be afraid, to be worried”

“But he treated me like I was worthless… like the very notion of me wanting to be something more than just his heir was a..”

“Betrayal?” 

“I just don’t get it, why can’t we just.. wave some leaves around and he’s all better? Why can’t he just drink something disgusting and he’s okay?”

Merilwen put her hand on his shoulder in a show of comfort “Because sometimes it takes a little longer, even with magic” 

********

After days of treatment, Lord Milquetoast started to recover from the injuries he was dealt during that night in Morgana’s temporary prison.

Though he was still mostly bed bound, Corazón was able to tell when he was better because the man had started to sarcastically remark on things his son was doing.

“Oh how glad I am you are well once more, father” he said in response to one such remark

“Yes well…”

Before the man could say anything else Merilwen burst through the door with an excited look on her face. 

“I have good news!” she said in a breathless voice that told Corazón she had run up the stairs to deliver this news. “Since I have done so much good work for nature… Binbag has offered me a hand. He’s figured out how to break the curse that holds us on this island”

“Really?”

“No, I’m lying to make you feel better” 

“Oh…” 

This elicited a slight laugh from Lord Milquetoast as Corazón processed that his friend was being sarcastic. 

“Hey, it’s been a long couple of days, don’t hassle me” he turned to look at his father “and you, especially do not hassle me” 

“Anyway” Merilwen said impatiently “There’s something I can do, give me the necklace Cora”

He looked down at the necklace he was wearing, the one that Katie had stolen from this island and the reason he and his friends were stuck here. It felt like it had been years since all of this had taken place, the very memory of being in the harbour that morning as Ingrid ran to them to deliver Katie’s final gift… it felt foggy, as though it had happened to someone else who couldn’t quite remember the details. 

He took it off and handed it to Merilwen, who then looked at Corazón’s father “Do you happen to have any uh, cursed items?”

“I do, my dear young Percival here” 

“Excuse me?” Corazón said indignantly

“We don’t have time for this guys, we have the chance to get off this horrible island, but we need to get the things that tie us to the island, and we need to all leave to go with Binbag”

“Ew, we have to leave with Binbag?”

“He’s helping us Corazón, I don’t understand why you hate him so much - If it wasn’t for him you and your father might have gotten gravely hurt, or worse” 

Corazón shrugged “I just…” he walked over to the bed his father was sat up in and grabbed the pillow that he was using for comfort, the man slumped back a bit on the bed and then lightly smacked Corazón’s wrist. 

“Ouch! You hit your own son?”

“I barely touched you”

“Say that again when I have a large welt across my arm” Corazón tossed the pillow back at his father with a bit more force than he should have and turned to his elf friend once more “I think Binbag talks too much about the wizarding world, and I don’t even know what that means”

“Yeah… I don’t get it either… but shhh..”

“What, does he have magical listening devices in our ears?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, now… once again, do you have anything else?”

“Oh, I have this cursed ring my father brought to me. Thanks for the gift Dad.”

“You were already cursed to be stuck on this island before I arrived”

“Yes, but when you arrived I was double cursed” 

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the ring, motioning to hand it to Merilwen but pulling back hesitantly “Will this destroy the ring?” 

“Why?” 

“Just curious about the process, is all…” he reluctantly handed off the ring and Merilwen set her expression to determined “The others are waiting outside, we must not keep them waiting”

“I, obviously will not be joining your little soiree” Lord Milquetoast said as Corazón and Merilwen were heading to the door “As I am still very weak and do not believe it wise to push myself” 

“Nobody cares” Corazón said before slamming the door shut behind him and Merilwen, the pair headed downstairs and Merilwen chuckled 

“You pretend to hate your father so much”

“It’s not pretend”

She gave him a look of doubt as they reached the landing in the tavern “Corazón”

“Oh bloody hell, alright” He said, uncomfortably looking down at his boots “I was worried about my father, despite all the… issues that I have with him I do care for him” 

Merilwen said nothing and Corazón felt the need to defend himself more “But it’s because it’s an ingrained thing, you’re supposed to care about the people whom you spent so much time with.. and I suppose he did take care of me”

He lifted his eyes to find Merilwen silent and giving him an expectant look, like he knew a secret that she was just dying to hear and waiting for him to divulge. He groaned loudly.

“Fine! I asked about the ring because… because even though it’s cursed, my father told me that when this is over I can just wear it as a ring and, I don’t know… it felt kind of nice to receive a gift from my father”

“You should tell him that” Merilwen said “He clearly gave it to you out of love for his son”

“Psh, that’s… stupid Merilwen, you’re supposed to be a wise elf that’s lived a hundred years but that’s… dumb”

“Corazón, can your fragile ego be put on hold for like ten minutes while we actually figure a way to end the curse and get off the island?”

He considered this for a minute and then motioned towards the door without saying another word, he heard Merilwen’s slight chuckle behind him. 

They headed outside where Prudence, Dob and Egbert were waiting, Egbert was passing the time by juggling two medium sized bombs and Prudence looked away from him towards the two new arrivals

“What took you so long?”

“I had to fix my hair” Corazón said sarcastically

“Okay, so are we all ready?” Merilwen asked

Before anyone could answer this question - the wind picked up around them and they soon disappeared in a blanket of mist, to reappear seconds later in the middle of a large empty field. 

Binbag stood before them and gave a theatrical wave and smile, which faltered slightly when he saw Corazón with them.

“As you all know…”

Dob nudged Corazón’s side with his elbow and whispered “Wanna bet he’ll talk about the wizarding word?”

“I mean he can’t shut up about it, not much of a bet”

Binbag cleared his throat “I can hear you back there Dob and… Pirate”

“My name is…”

“Man of many names, be quiet” Binbag said calmly, this elicited a laugh from the others as Binbag came forward “Merilwen” he said in his booming voice “May I have the items?”

Merilwen fumbled in her pockets for a moment before producing from them the necklace and the ring, which she handed to the old wizard. 

He studied them for a moment and then set them atop a tree stump that sat between the group, Corazón felt the urge to speak up at this moment as he felt confusion about what Binbag was even going to do to the items.

Binbag closed his eyes and started to chant something, then he opened them again “We must destroy these items, once destroyed… the curse shall be lifted”

Corazón scoffed and looked to Merilwen who put her hand up “Uh, excuse me Mr. Binbag… I…”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering.. do we have to destroy the ring?” 

He looked as if he had trouble deciphering what she was saying, he cleared his throat and picked up the ring from the tree stump “It’s quite an ugly little thing, I don’t know why you would consider not destroying it. But the answer, I am afraid is that we must destroy the items to remove the curse….” 

“But… there must be another way… a way without destroying the items, specifically the ring” 

“Why do you care so much for this ring?” The Wizard asked, a look of doubt on his face

Merilwen hesitated for a minute before spluttering out “I just… I think it’s nice, and… I’d like to wear it”

Dob made a face and looked to Merilwen “Merilwen, it’s just a ring… we’ve got loads of coin, we could buy a new ring, if it’s that important to you” 

Corazón came forward and approached Binbag “She doesn’t want the ring… I do”

“Don’t you have enough rings, Cora?” Egbert asked

“Not like this one” he motioned to take the ring from Binbag, who relented and let him hold it “This one is a gift… possibly the only gift that has any meaning to it from a man who simply gifted out of societal pressure and not any actual affection” 

He turned the ring around in his hand and it caught the early evening light from the sun that was slowly sinking behind the clouds as the sky started to darken. 

Everyone stayed silent, the message behind Corazón’s actions becoming clear as he wistfully studied the ring “All of this… none of this would have ever happened if I hadn’t gone back to Abelforth, if I had ignored my fathers letter in the first place… It would be quite a shame to let myself forget all that has occurred here, this ring is more than just a ring to me…and if it comes to it, I will see it destroyed, but I do wish for another option” 

There was a silence in the air that no one knew how to fill, Egbert was inexplicably steaming from his eye sockets and Merilwen had a very somber expression. 

“Wait, who gave him the ring?” Dob asked 

Merilwen, Egbert and Prudence, who were approaching Corazón to give him a hug, or in Prudence’s case, a supportive eye roll, all looked to Dob who had the most innocently confused look on his face. 

The new silence was broken by Binbag “I suppose if it means this much to you, we may be able to break this curse without breaking the ring.”


	6. At Long Last, Leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! the end of another adventure, watch out for a new fic coming soon!

It was a bright morning in the harbour which found five adventurers ready and somewhat desperate to leave the island.

“It’s a great job we found a way to break the curse without breaking the ring” Dob said as they made their way to the harbour where The Joyful Damnation was docked

As they approached, they saw someone else standing in the harbour waiting for a ship, Merilwen peered out from behind Dob to see that it was Lord Milquetoast

“Mr. Milquetoast” Dob said with a wave aimed at the man, he turned towards the group but did not wave back at them. Corazón took a couple of careful steps towards his father and let out a long breath 

“I was sort of wondering where you’d gone off to when we awoke this morning and you weren’t there”

“Ah, yes, I suppose I should have written a note, but…”

“Why are you waiting for a ship? We could take you back” Egbert offered, but Corazón shook his head and tried to elbow Egbert to shut him up “What Egbert means is that he understands why you would want to find your own ship to go back to your home, located in Abelforth, which is where we definitely are not going” 

“Correct, I am headed back to Abelforth.. This was quite the adventure” 

Before Corazón could say anything in response, a gust of air blew between the group and The Wizard Binbag appeared to them once more

“I have forgotten a great detail to tell you… The moment you were cursed back in Abelforth, you were affected by uh… a time distortion”

“What’s that?” Corazón asked

Binbag cleared his throat “It uh… it means that how long you think it has been is not reflective of reality.”

Corazón gave the wizard a look as he tried to process this information “So… how long have we been on this island exactly?”

“How long do you feel as though you’ve been residents on this island?” 

“Ages and ages” Dob said matter-of-factly “We’ve probably been here for months” 

At this, Binbag let out a soft chuckle as he looked at Dob “What is the last adventure you remember having prior to this?” 

“Who can really tell at this point?” Corazón shrugged 

“You have only been gone in reality, for several days…”

“Wait, days?!” Prudence piped up “You mean to tell me you knew that we weren’t actually gone for that long and you waited to tell us?”

“I… uh” Binbag hesitated “I wanted to make sure my details were correct, once you return, time returns back to normal” he looks at Lord Milquetoast “Whatever it was you were doing before, it just happened several days prior” 

He then looks at Corazón “Any debts you have, you can bet people will remember”

There was a heavy silence as the group stood in the harbour as the morning sun started to light up the area around them, sparkling in the reflection of the water. Binbag broke the silence by clicking his tongue and then giving them a wave before disappearing in a puff of smoke and a crack of thunder, despite the mostly clear skies.

Corazón looked to his friends, then his father “This is a lot to take in… how about we don’t think about any of this ever again?”

“Deal” Egbert said “It’s way too confusing for my brain to even make sense of”

Corazón cleared his throat “I suppose this is goodbye” 

“I suppose it is” Lord Milquetoast replied without looking at his son 

“I suppose you’ll go back to pretending I don’t exist”

“I suppose I will” 

Corazón scoffed at this and turned on his heel to head towards his ship, as he did, Merilwen approached the aristocrat “You could have thanked him for saving your life, you are aware?”

“I believe the silence speaks louder and that not everything must be said” 

“Are you that blind? I’m almost the dumbest person here and even I know that Corazón is really hurt by your choice of words”

“He asked a question, I simply answered truthfully” 

“Are you serious?” Merilwen asked “Have you learned absolutely nothing this entire time?” 

“I suppose not” 

A ship started to roll into the dock with the words “Port of Abelforth” emblazoned on the side, Lord Milquetoast took one last glance around him, and looked towards his son’s ship to find the man cross armed and looking at him with quite a withering expression. 

“He kept the ring you gave him, by the way” Prudence finally spoke up after a moment as the aristocrat was helped onto the ship 

“I did not ask him to, he knows very well it is not worth anything” The man said his final piece as the ship prepared to leave the port, heading back to Corazón’s old home with a man who had learned very little on his adventure. 

The gang rejoined Corazón on the ship as the morning grew brighter, he was staring out at the horizon as his fathers ship grew further and further away until there was nothing more to see. 

Corazón pulled the ring out of his pocket and studied it for a moment before motioning to throw it, Prudence stepped forward to stop him and shook her head.

“Don’t, let me have it. I’ll destroy it for you” 

“Why?” He asked

“I punched your father in the face back in Abelforth, I feel like it’s only right that I destroy the last thing he bestowed upon you.”

“He’s a stupid worthless old man, do whatever you want with the ring. I don’t care” 

The morning was tinged with a sadness that not one of the crew could lift, Corazón’s spirits were incredibly low for the duration of their trip, and Merilwen only hoped that whatever came next, would help not just him, but them all, to have a reason to celebrate once more.


End file.
